CdA may get $29 million Kroc grant

Coeur d’Alene beat out Seattle, Tacoma and numerous other cities Thursday to become a finalist for a Salvation Army grant to build a multimillion-dollar community center.

Mayor Sandi Bloem said Coeur d’Alene’s selection as a finalist means the city is almost guaranteed a grant of up to $29 million for a multipurpose Kroc Center that will offer something to every resident in Kootenai County.

“My first reaction was to run out in the street and scream,” Bloem said.

Instead, the mayor started making celebratory calls on her cell phone. “All the pieces just came together,” she said. “We didn’t have a weak spot in this grant.”

Bloem’s exuberance was matched by others who said the community center would fill a void and add to the area’s self-improvement efforts of the past 25 years. Coeur d’Alene’s proposed community center would include an aquatic center, educational center, performing arts center and field house.

Coeur d’Alene and seven other cities were selected by the Salvation Army as finalists. All eight could win grants if they can now prove an ability to support and sustain the gigantic community centers for years to come.

“We don’t want to build it and then have it become an albatross on the community or the Salvation Army,” said Col. Terry Griffin, Salvation Army director for Washington, North Idaho and northwestern Montana.

He doesn’t anticipate Coeur d’Alene will have a problem proving the community’s commitment and ability to sustain the center that would be built on 12 acres just south of Ramsey Park.

“I’m very excited for Coeur d’Alene,” said Griffin who traveled to Idaho several times during the application process. “I believe the whole community has what it takes. It’s totally community driven. They came to us and said ‘We want to do this.’ “

McDonald’s heiress Joan B. Kroc bestowed $1.5 billion on the Salvation Army – the largest donation ever given to a charity – to build community centers modeled after the $50 million Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in San Diego.

Coeur d’Alene raised $1.3 million in six weeks to demonstrate its ability to keep a Kroc center running. Bloem thinks that effort, which wasn’t part of the official application process, pushed Coeur d’Alene into the finals.

The grant would come with a matching endowment — also up to $29 million — to help pay about 30 percent of annual maintenance and operation costs. The remainder would come from memberships and user fees, donations and other grants.

Former Lt. Gov. Jack Riggs, who helped raise more than $1 million in pledges in only weeks, said he encouraged people to be generous, telling them that if the city didn’t win the grant, they wouldn’t have to pay.

“But if you’re generous, look at the gift we’ll be given,” he said.

In addition to Coeur d’Alene, three California cities, Denver, Honolulu, Phoenix and Salem, Ore., all made it into the finals, beating out 11 other cities.

The finalists will now be given money to develop conceptual plans for the centers.

Besides showing the financial sustainability, the cities must write a five-year working budget. Griffin said he wasn’t sure of the deadline for the work.

News of Coeur d’Alene’s selection spread quickly.

“Pretty tremendous, isn’t it?” said Jonathan Coe, general manager of the Coeur d’Alene Area Chamber of Commerce.

Coe was on the committee that worked on the grant application. The process started last fall in Boise, when committee members made the case that Coeur d’Alene should be chosen as the community representing Idaho in the application process.

“We don’t have a publicly available pool for kids to swim in. We don’t have a Boys and Girls Club, or a YMCA. Our community was the neediest at the time in Idaho,” Coe said.

In the grant application, community leaders told the story of a town that bootstrapped its way out of poverty over the last 25 years, Coe said.

“We did the most important things first,” before turning attention to a community center, he said. “We had the much more urgent task of growing our economy, supporting our schools, a new library and Kootenai Medical Center. They were all critical changes to pull ourselves up.”

The center will mirror Kroc’s focus on physical, artistic and spiritual development.

“Joan Kroc envisioned a place where future Olympians would get a chance to swim in a pool,” Coe said. Or where kids who might not have access to paint and clay could take art lessons, he said.

Coe said the center’s site on Ramsey Road is a perfect match for its mission. It’s walking distance from multiple schools, and near a future rails-to-trail bike path.

“The Salvation Army people fell in love with the site,” he said. “Thousands of people will be able to walk and bike to the center.”

Committee member Sue Thilo was at the airport Thursday on her way out of town when she heard the news.

“We were the right candidates,” she said. “We put together a strong proposal and we meet the criteria. We’re underserved.”

Thilo said the center would fill a lot of the infrastructure needs Coeur d’Alene has had “for a long time.” She and others are particularly excited about the proposed aquatic center.

“I’m absolutely ecstatic,” said Jonathan Siegler, a senior at Lake City High and a competitive swimmer. “I absolutely cannot believe it. It will open up so many activities for people, give kids a place to go.”

Siegler starting swimming competitively at age 7 and most recently swam for the high school. He teaches swimming now.

“It would’ve changed everything if we’d had a recreation center,” he said. “We’ve been crammed into little pools, trying to make the best of it, 10 to 12 kids per lane. I’m very excited. I’m going to start a water polo league.”

Coeur d’Alene School District Superintendent Harry Amend, who also worked on the proposal, said the center will serve a cross-section of the community, from young children to senior citizens.

“The potential just gives me goose bumps to think about it,” he said.