Fred Meyer, Atlas Center Projects Waiting For Green Light

You think that Highway 95 north of Coeur d’Alene is busy now. Just wait. If the proposed projects at Highway 95 and Kathleen Avenue get green lights, the future traffic will blow your tires off.

Two major 25-acre projects - a huge Fred Meyer complex and a 24-plot Atlas Center commercial development - are planned for the west side of the intersection. The city is waiting for Fred Meyer to file for a building permit. The Atlas project has been approved by Planning and Zoning and will go before the City Council when utility improvement plans are in place.

The 26.3-acre Fred Meyer project would make an “L” shape around Parker Toyota. Access, according to the plan, would be from three areas:

Off southbound Highway 95 from an extension of Sunset Avenue to the west.

Off a new Bosanko Avenue that would intersect Highway 95 with a traffic light on the south end of the project.

The new road would make an “L” around the property and intersect with Kathleen Avenue on the north with another light.

The 150,000-square-foot Fred Meyer store would be similar to the Portland-based company’s other giant shopping centers with food, apparel and variety sections. The store primarily would run east and west, centering on the Fruitland Lane “T”, but with main entrances to the north and a 2,000-stall parking area.

Two pads of 6,000 and 7,000 square feet are planned for the eastern corners of the property, and a 30,000-square-foot store is planned for the northwest plat.

The Atlas project, owned by Idaho Forest Industries, would wrap around IFI’s existing Atlas Building Center and the new Duncan’s Garden Center on Kathleen. Access to the 24 building sites, primarily about six-tenths of an acre each, would be from Kathleen with a new road between Duncan’s and Interstate Concrete to the west. One larger plot would face Highway 95 on the north side of Atlas Building Center.

Good Things will emphasize “All handmade in America” antiques and crafts at a new store to open in early May at 204 N. Third St., Coeur d’Alene.

Owner Kathy Ralkowski said her inventory will emphasize early American country style. Included will be redware pottery, Amish quilts, Shaker furniture and baskets, Windsor chairs and benches, folk-art dolls, weathervanes, woven rugs, twig furniture and Christmas items all year.

A lifetime antique collector and crafts enthusiast, Ralkowski originally is from Nebraska and came to North Idaho via Puget Sound.

What would have been a neighbor to Good Things, Monogram Plus, two weeks ago moved from 206 N. Third St. to 1006 N. Third. Owners George and Virginia Reisnaur bought the former Army-Navy store building.

The Reisnaur’s 3,600-square-foot building offers them more room and 25 off-street parking stalls. The building was constructed in 1974 as a Checker Auto Parks store.

Monogram Plus offers full-service silkscreening and embroidery to a growing variety of customers from individuals to federal government contracts, George said. Many of their products are shipped to African countries.

Originally from North Dakota, the Reisnaurs came to the Inland Northwest via Great Falls, Mont., where he was a butcher. He was meat manager at McLaughlin’s Thrift in St. Maries and later had Reisnaur Upholstery in Post Falls. They opened Monogram Plus in Post Falls in 1984 and came to Coeur d’Alene in 1986.

Some tidbits:

Michelle Westerling moved her Documentary Form & Trustee Service from her home to Suite 131 of Harbor Plaza, 610 W. Hubbard St., Coeur d’Alene. A certified legal assistant, Westerling shares her business space with tax specialist Ruth Ann Lewis.

Kootenai Eletric Cooperative is planning a 6,000-square-foot addition to the east side of its existing 12,200-square-foot building in Hayden. The company has about doubled to 60 employees since the current facility was built in 1979.