Elks building sale closes

COEUR d’ALENE — The old Elks Club on Lakeside Avenue hasn’t seen much action since 1996, but all that is about to change.

Nick Smoot and his two partners, Rich Thrasher and Cody Peterson, closed on the building Monday, and are now in the planning stages for the soon-to-be Innovation Den at 418 E. Lakeside Ave.

The trio doesn’t have any set timelines they are willing to divulge at this point, but they are actively working to begin remodeling the building as soon as possible.

“We have heard over and over it is a big project. We agree and are excited to take it on,” Thrasher said in a statement on Tuesday. “This city is great and deserves a place like The Innovation Den to educate, inspire and build great future companies.”

Smoot said the partners are actively working with architects and designers to assess the scope of work needed to bring the building back to habitable conditions.

“We have a pretty good grasp on what needs to be done,” Smoot said in an interview Tuesday, adding that many people have spent a lot of time assessing the building since the Elks Club sold it and moved to its new location on Prairie Avenue in 1996. “We have been building relationships with a lot of these folks.”

Smoot said the ultimate goal is to transform the building into the heartbeat of the tech industry in the Northwest.

George Paul Braden, secretary of Elks Lodge 1254, said he is happy to see the building getting some attention after all of the years it sat on the market.

“I was the exalted ruler who put that building on the market in 1985,” he said. “It was costing us quite a bit of money to keep that building going back then.”

Braden said the Elks board chose to put it on the market for $40,000 in the mid-80s, but the building didn’t sell until 1996.

“You didn’t have to tell me that,” Smoot said after learning of the original listing price.

Smoot declined to comment on the price they paid for the building, but said it was much more than $40,000.

Braden didn’t recall how much the building finally sold for in 1996, but county records list the market value of the building at $495,831.

Braden said the family that bought the building from the Elks never would tell them what they had planned to use it for. If it was the same family trust that sold it to Smoot’s partnership, it was owned by the Bowlin Family Qtip Trust.

“When I joined the Elks Club 57 years ago, we had 2,000 members,” Braden said. “Then we had dropped to 350 members when we put the building on the market and that wasn’t enough to support it.”

To help support the building, the Elks leased out the upper level of the building to the Athletic Center, but eventually that club went under, so they decided to sell it.

“It absolutely was a money pit,” he said. “And the parking was deplorable.”

Braden said the new owners certainly have their work cut out for them.

“I can see they are going to have problems with the parking as well,” he said.

Smoot said the partnership is not willing to divulge many of the details they have planned at this point in time, but said they do plan to address the parking issues.

“We know there is going to be a lot of hard work to pull this off,” Smoot said. “But we feel like it is manageable.”