Atlas waterfront development challenge
The city of Coeur d’Alene and ignite cda, as well as its consultants and contractors, are attached at the hip to oversee the packaging and completion of the city’s deep pocket purchase and development of the Atlas Mill Site river front acreage. Financial, social, political and community pressure is inevitable in a civic venture underpinned by taxpayer dollars. It is not for the faint of heart or fickle of conviction.
I am feeling a foreboding sense we are not getting the Original vision right upon delivery. Guidelines set out an array of styles and contextual suggestions. The first westerly parcel is well underway in gray, blue and black Shed roof boxes repeated side by side. With Realtors selling these $2 million homes and the developer/builder opting to repeat the same plans in mirror image they are well executed but pat solutions that should not be celebrated. Spending that much money should ensure some degree of uniqueness. Each parcel should not be repetitious clustering of the same building envelope.
We need to look at what has molded the charming, walkable areas of our city — The Garden District, the Fort Grounds, Midtown, Sanders Beach, Best Hills, even the later Fairway Forest and Fairmont Loop areas as desirable places to live. No high architecture but memorable in personality, human in scale and varietal. Besides established trees, the gradual build out of the residential neighborhoods have organically created invigorating streetscapes. No two houses are alike or rarely even similar. Landscaping, walkways, fencing, plants, color and textural patterning have made these areas approachable and neighborly. New infill housing has embraced that serendipity. These neighborhoods are unified in their disparities, hold solid returns on investment and encourage limited turnover of housing stock.
Newer developments like Belle Rive waterfront, Mill River, and the humble Best Hills have orchestrated one-of-a-kind solutions with a mix of stylistic variety. A unique array of setbacks, rooflines, building styles, massing and customization add personality to both the individual and collective parts.
Mass production homes in America began in full roll out with the Sears kit homes, ordered by catalogue and delivered by rail — everything from English cottage, Tudor, Spanish Revival, Dutch Colonial, etc. The Sears styles influenced our early Garden district in particular. Evidently we were far more diverse in our design vocabulary in 1908 than 2022!
Builders, developers and PUD/HOA planned developments in Coeur d’Alene seem to get stuck in one mode. We still lean to simplified Craftsman as the ONLY style in multiple housing developments, while opting for the easier Shed Roof (AKA chicken coop) and Farmhouse look in our recent developments. When all entries, garages, elevations and identical roof slopes are street facing little helps to relieve the monotony. It becomes Sub Urban where house numbers and porch planters are the only identifiers.
Chasing trends and profit have builders and Realtors driving our new residential stock. Coeur d’Alene is historically 10 to 20 years behind architectural trends. As we seem to settle locally on one style I fear we will be looking at a 70-acre hillside of tonal gray sheds and white farmhouse structures. Great neighborhoods have broad appeal and when the latest trend becomes passé and dated these will be hard to update. If we miss it on the first pass there is no going back.
Where is our managerial drive to uphold and fight for unique solutions for all the elements of a structure that set it apart? And then make the structure beside it a different but harmonious solution? Clever use of materials, details, color may be all that is required. If our developer/builders can only build one style then please spread them far apart and avoid selling adjacent parcels to one-note developers.
The best chance for the Atlas Waterfront might be a slower build out so we move on from the hot selling “trends” that inevitably fall out of favor. Not a preferred option by stakeholders I am sure.
I want to challenge the team at Atlas to not get backed into settling for a sale and accepting prosaic solutions over distinctive site usage, material applications and provocative design — think your favorite locale in your favorite place anywhere in the world. What makes walking or driving the neighborhood engaging and uplifting day after day? It should not be about high cost “Architecture” but seeing applications across a wide spectrum that serve the breadth of our populace.
Seize this for the long haul and bring us an urban housing and commercial stock that is visionary, uplifting, innovative and dare I say it — Unique beyond 2022?
• • •
Lynn Fleming is the P&Z commissioner and 45-year design professional. She is a Coeur d’Alene resident.