Cd'A moves forward on riverfront property

The city of Coeur d’Alene will enter into an agreement to purchase 47 acres of riverfront property at the old Atlas Mill site, council members decided Tuesday.

In a unanimous vote, council members opted at their regular meeting to pursue the plan that could eventually entail spending $7.85 million to buy the former mill site along Seltice Way, the former home of the Atlas and Stimson mills, which includes a half-mile of river frontage.

The vote will allow the city to move forward with its investigation of the site, assessing the property for remediation, economic benefit and to gather public input, City Administrator Jim Hammond said.

The city will pay $100,000 earnest money to hold the property for five months leading up to an Oct. 25 purchase date.

“We want to do our due diligence before we make the purchase,” Hammond said.

He expects to incur the cost of hiring an outside company to help with the work, but much of the preparation leading up to the October sale date — including the annexation plans for the property, which lies outside city boundaries, zoning and approval of development plans — will be done in-house.

“A large group of folks will be putting in time on this,” Hammond said. “It’s possible. We just have to hustle.”

Despite an enthusiastic approval of the plan by the council to enter into the investigation phase, at least one audience member didn’t like the proposal.

Ray Mosher, a resident of Edgewater at Mill River, an adjacent development, said by buying the property itself, the city is losing out on tax revenue he estimated at being close to $5 million annually instead of the $1.5 million the city expects to eventually collect through future development there.

Mosher, who has lived in Coeur d’Alene for 70 years, didn’t think the city’s leap into the real estate business was a good idea.

If the city allowed developers to buy the land, Mosher said, “You wouldn’t have any outlay of capital.”

He wasn’t persuaded the city could recoup its investment, he said.

“I think you should let private enterprise take its place.”

Mayor Steve Widmyer said part of the difficulty that potential developers have had with the site was a lack of answers. Since Stimson Lumber, which operated there until 2005, closed its doors and left the acreage vacant, several developers have had the property under contract, but deals failed to close.

There were too many unanswered questions, Widmyer said. Developers couldn’t foresee whether the city would annex the property, or when, and how it would be zoned, or if the site — which carries a brownfield stigma — would require expensive clean up.

“We have for a while now, waited for the private sector,” Widmyer said. “We’ve seen developers come and go. And right now it’s providing zero tax dollars to the city of Coeur d’Alene.”

Environmental tests have been done at the site by the state, according to the city.

“We feel, I think, the site is environmentally safe,” Widmyer said.

One of the bigger concerns of community members, he said, was the need for more public water access. The purchase of the mill property would potentially provide for a quarter-mile of public access, while selling off a quarter mile for development.

Council member Dan English agreed the public wants more places to get to the lake and river.

“As long as I can remember, people have expressed a desire for more waterfront access,” English said. “I have complete confidence this is in line with what a good portion of our citizens want.”

If the city moves forward to purchase the property, its urban renewal agency, ignite cda, will be instrumental in either paying for the property — if annexation has taken place — or buying the property from the city, and then taking over the reins of developing the land, Hammond said.