County completes parking lot pair
LOREN BENOIT/Press Construction crews wrapped up work on time on major parking-lot projects at Kootenai County’s administration building and elections office last week.
The $513,000 contract for improvements included reconstruction and resurfacing of parking lots at the administration building and the county’s elections office on North Third Street. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Crews wrapped up work on time and within budget on major parking-lot projects at Kootenai County’s administration building and elections office last week.
“We killed it, budget-wise,” said Mike DiPietro, project manager for Rathdrum-based general contractor T Lariviere. “It all went very smoothly.”
The $513,000 contract for improvements included reconstruction and resurfacing of parking lots at the administration building off Government Way at Northwest Boulevard and to the county’s elections office on North Third Street.
The project added 11 parking spots — to 98 spaces, from 87 — in the administration lot.
The administration parking lot upgrades were not without controversy.
County Commissioner Bill Brooks said a big part of the parking problem was not with limited space but rather who’s using it.
“If we didn’t have so many (county) employees parking there, we’d have plenty of spaces for the public,” he said.
Brooks estimates 40% of the spots on any workday are occupied by county workers, a violation of policy. Signage on the lot says parking is for visitors, not county staff.
Brooks said staffers using the lot frustrated him because the county paid $1.3 million in 2017 to design and build a parking lot on city-leased land just south of Northwest Boulevard in front of the administration building.
Under an agreement with the city of Coeur d’Alene, 205 parking spots were designated for county employees and “county campus visitors” during weekday working hours. Work even included signals for pedestrians crossing Northwest Boulevard.
The lots will be open to the public today.