Donation deemed a trail saver

COEUR d’ALENE — A plan to build a row of tract homes on the Centennial Trail at Riverstone was officially kiboshed with the donation Monday of adjacent land to the trail foundation for use as a greenbelt.

More than 75 people attended the ceremony Monday morning of the North Idaho Centennial Trail Foundation, which received from developer John Stone a narrow finger of land — about 70,000 square feet, or about an acre and a half — valued around $150,000.

The donation includes a strip of asphalt, which once served as a temporary leg of the urban bicycle and walking trail, from the parking lot of the Riverstone pond east to Beebe Boulevard.

Stone said he built the temporary trail next to Tilford Lane years ago to assure the North Idaho Centennial Trail flowed continuously through Riverstone before it was officially completed.

Stone’s 600-foot-long swath lies directly adjacent to the existing trail, which in itself is separated from another undeveloped strip of land — also a temporary walking trail, north of Bellerive Lane — by a row of young ponderosa pine trees.

The tiered strips of land are the result of a series of railroad rights of way that once passed through the former mill property, which eventually became the Riverstone subdivision.

The Centennial Trail right of way, once owned by Union Pacific Railroad, belongs to the city, and the right of way to the south along Bellerive, once Burlington Northern land, is owned by ignite cda, the city’s urban renewal agency.

Stone’s donation, which will be used to enhance the greenbelt along the North Idaho Centennial Trail, circumvented a plan by the city to trade its 60 feet of former railroad right-of-way to ignite cda in exchange for land at the foot of Tubbs Hill.

Combining both rights-of-way at Riverstone would have resulted in a 120-foot swath owned by ignite cda big enough for a housing project.

Once combined, the value of the newly joined property would have been approximately $1 million, according to the city. The plan would have included moving a section of the Centennial Trail around the parcel.

Doug Eastwood, former city parks director who is a liaison for the Centennial Trail Foundation, said the latest plan, thanks to Stone’s donation, will act as a buffer from future development for trail users, ensure the trail stays where it is, and serve to complete the greenbelt plan that was originally intended when the Centennial Trail was conceived.

“We’re going to have one of the nicest greenbelts in the Pacific Northwest,” Eastwood said. “I’ll venture to say, in the entire country.”

Coeur d’Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer said although the plan was floated to trade the city’s Centennial Trail right of way to ignite cda for development in exchange for land at Tubbs Hill, the plan fizzled.

“After further research and after receiving feedback, the city and ignite decided that this trade was not something that we wanted to move forward with and the proposal has been canceled,” Widmyer said.

The city made the decision months ago.

Stone said he and the trail board had planned for years to turn his narrow, 600-foot-long swath of real estate, which heads east from the pond parking lot to Beebe Boulevard, into a trail parkway, but the timing didn’t pan out until now.

“It was our plan all along,” he said.