Lake District works through priorities

Projects de-prioritized included the next phase skate park, museum

The Coeur d’Alene city council’s discussion this week about how to prioritize the last of the Lake District’s projects gave ignite cda executive director Tony Berns a bevy of information to take to his urban renewal agency’s board.

“I thought council was very engaged and interested in providing Lake District project priority input to the ignite cda board,” he said.

“I also felt council was very pleased with the Lake District’s accomplishments over the years in helping to create great community public spaces, new mix-use developments and increased property valuations,” Berns continued.

The last of those projects were rated by council with “high,” “medium” and “low” priorities. Among the high priorities was reimbursement for the land and right-of-way use for the nearly-completed Atlas Waterfront project, a park that will open in mid-August along the shores of the Spokane River. Completing a LaCrosse-Lakeside roadway connection was also listed as a higher priority.

Since the Lake District began, the city and developers have worked to build Riverstone, McEuen Terrace, the Chamber of Commerce building, the Parkside Tower, the Kroc Center, the Coeur d’Alene Public Library, Sorenson Magnet School, the Higher Education campus, McEuen Park, Memorial Park, the downtown parking garage and the new Memorial Field grandstand, among others.

But some projects, as with what happens in most all urban renewal districts, might not make the finish line at the same time as the Lake District’s expiration date in two years. Some of the projects de-prioritized Monday included the next phase of the skate park and the museum, which could be folded into future districts, funded through bonds or constructed through private donation.

Councilman Dan Gookin, an opponent of the city’s urban renewal districts, said he would have preferred a better-defined roadmap from the outset, rather than having to decide which projects will be deprioritized.

It was good to give priorities to ignite cda, Gookin said, “though as I mentioned at the meeting, they’re free to ignore them.”

He said what would have been better is that ignite cda had a practical plan with a solid matrix.

“Absent that, they spent the money on this and that,” Gookin said.

Berns said, since its infancy, the Lake District has proven itself to be a successful example of urban renewal. When asked about its challenges since the district first formed in 1997, Berns said the biggest hurdles it had to clear was just the process of developing in busy areas of town.

“The Lake District is an urban in-fill redevelopment district,” he explained, “which often times offers challenging project venues, (such as) working in established neighborhoods, working to reclaim former industrial sites like Riverstone, the Higher Education campus and Memorial Park, (and) working in urban settings where project staging is challenging.”

That said, Berns added he was looking forward to working with the community through outreach efforts for urban renewal projects on the horizon.

“Continuing efforts to help the public understand urban renewal,” he said, “in general and more specifically the vision, mission and business model of ignite that has resulted in the successes ignite has helped create in the community over the years through partnership projects.”