MY TURN: A City & ignite cda Vision for the Atlas Mill Site

Recently, ignite cda held a workshop with the Coeur d’Alene City Council and the Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission to provide an update on the Atlas Mill site project, and to refresh memories regarding the city’s and ignite cda’s vision for the Atlas site. 

The vision was to reclaim the mill site for the community which included both the creation of a public waterfront park and the development of residential and commercial land uses. Given the fact that several private sector developers could not make a project work financially on the Atlas site without developing waterfront homes, the city’s purchase of the Atlas site was for the betterment of the community.

Following the city’s decision to purchase the Atlas site, several community workshops were held in 2018. The community was supportive of the city’s vision and shared that they wanted waterfront access and not more waterfront homes lining the shoreline, and they were willing to support higher density development on the remainder of the former mill site in order to have the waterfront accessible to the community in perpetuity. Following the input received at the public workshops, the Atlas Site Master Plan, which can be found on the city’s website, included the following objectives:

• Reimburse the city's Atlas Mill site land purchase,
• Fund site remediation and infrastructure and public space improvements through land sales and tax increment financing,
• Preserve the waterfront land area as public space, and 
• Create a unique and desirable addition to the city. 

In addition to preserving the waterfront and creating public space along the Spokane River, the Master Plan envisioned a mix of housing types and neighborhood retail, with a waterfront restaurant to support the neighborhood and trail users. The intent was not to duplicate the Riverstone development, or have the same intensity of commercial development as Riverstone, nor to create an employment center.

The city’s acquisition cost for the mill site totaled $9.1 million. The city sought a partnership with ignite cda to reclaim the mill site and hopefully reimburse the city for their acquisition costs. Beginning in 2018, ignite cda spent months analyzing the financial challenge of reclaiming the site given that the waterfront could not be developed. Ignite cda determined that reclamation and development was financially feasible given the public’s support for a higher density development behind the waterfront park.

The Atlas Waterfront Park was built and its amenities have been well received by the community. Ignite cda then proceeded to develop the remainder of the former mill site in phases by performing needed site remediation and building needed infrastructure (water, sewer, roads) to allow for the sale of the property to the private sector to generate revenues to pay for the infrastructure and the planned reimbursement to the city for their property acquisition costs. The phased development approach was implemented so that land sale revenues could be used to pay for infrastructure costs as the project progressed. The development of the project has been consistent with the original vision and matches what has been approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission through the Planned Unit Development process.

As with any ignite cda project, the ignite cda board took their fiduciary responsibility very seriously as they managed the project from its inception, working with highly talented architecture, engineering and real estate consulting firms.  

Over the past few years, ignite cda benefited from a favorable real estate market and realized land sale revenues that were higher than forecasted, allowing ignite cda to invest the higher revenues in reclaiming more of the Atlas site for housing (where a private developer would have simply taken the higher revenue as more profit). The Atlas development vision, approved by the Planning Commission, of single-family homes, apartment buildings and town homes have been constructed and sold creating jobs in the community. Approximately 65% of the developable mill site property has been reclaimed and sold (or under contract) to the private sector, with plans to sell the remaining property, including commercial food and beverage areas, over the next year or two. As shared at the recent City Council workshop, the project is doing very well financially which has given the ignite cda board the opportunity to explore the possible development of some level of local workforce housing on a portion of the remaining unsold acreage. 

The continuing development of the Atlas Project is meeting the vision set forth by the city and community, has reclaimed a major industrial brownfield site, and is performing well financially.  The financial strength of the Atlas project has given the ignite cda board the ability to pay for all of the reclamation and infrastructure costs, the ability to reimburse the city for their acquisition costs within the next several years, and to evaluate ignite cda’s role in the local worker housing issue. Community members have repeatedly thanked ignite cda and City Council members for preserving the waterfront from development and creating 3,780 linear feet of public shoreline and 24.5 acres of public open space, including a water dog park and other waterfront amenities.

Ignite views this as a very favorable outcome to a long-term reclamation project that is projected to create more than $300 million of new taxable property value once fully built out, along with permanent public waterfront open space.

Tony Berns is the executive director for ignite cda.