Post Falls Looking For A Square Deal Official’s Wife Envisions Town Square With Bandstand, Shops

Allan Donson and Bob Canady would love to have a vibrant town square in downtown Post Falls.

They just aren’t convinced that across the street from the house they rent is the best place for it.

“I don’t think they should put it there. They should put it on the old L-P (Louisiana Pacific) site,” Canady said upon examining plans for a new town square.

The square would be bordered by Fourth and Fifth streets and Spokane and William streets.

“It’s not a bad idea. They should just find a better place to put it,” Donson said.

That’s the kind of input Cyndie Hammond, who thought of the town square plan, wants.

The plan suggests a bandstand where the temporary quarters for city hall now stand, a seating and gathering area where the ambulance building is now, a fountain in the center of the square, retail shops around the edge on Fourth Street, turning the existing police station into a shop or museum of some sort, possibly a farmers market on Fifth Street by what is now the temporary city hall, an entry gate on Frederick Street, theme lighting and plenty of landscaping.

Hammond even includes in the proposal a German bakehouse like the one found in the hometown of Post Falls’ namesake Frederick Post. In many German towns of his time - including Post Falls’ sister city and Post’s hometown of Herborn, Germany - bakehouses in the middle of the town square served as gathering places.

“The Town Square idea, I think, blending the past with the new identity of Post Falls as it emerges into the 21st century, is just a wonderful one,” said Kim Brown, member of the Post Falls Historical Society.

Hammond said she thought of the concept while at an economic development conference. Since then, numerous volunteers have devoted thousands of hours to the project, she said.

“Mostly you ask yourself, ‘Why not?”’ Hammond said.

Neighbors had a few reasons.

“This, to me, is a waste of money,” Bob Sweitzer said. “Right now if they fixed up what they got they’d be in better shape.”

The Town Square plan calls for a parking lot where his and his wife’s home of nearly 29 years now stands.

“Nobody asked us,” Avis Sweitzer said.

The city would acquire land - such as the Sweitzers’ home - as it becomes available, Hammond said.

The Sweitzers don’t plan to budge, they said, until the city offers them a reasonable price.

“I know why Post Falls is doing all this, boxing us in. They want this house cheap, but they aren’t going to get it (cheap),” Bob Sweitzer said.

City officials had inquired about buying the Sweitzers’ home before but had offered them thousands less than the value of the house, he said.

“What’s reasonable to them and what’s reasonable to us is the difference,” said Jim Hammond, city administrator and Cyndie Hammond’s husband. “We can’t pay more than the fair market value.”

Bill Kiley, who lives on Fourth Street, likes the Town Square idea but worries about parking.

“It would be a great thing for the whole family to walk across the street on a nice summer night and enjoy that kind of stuff,” he said. “The only negative thing I have about it is all the parking right in front of my house.”

But he pointed out that he can’t complain too much because he lives in an area zoned to allow commercial development alongside houses. He just hopes the people planning the town square concept will talk about their proposal with nearby homeowners, he said.

The plan allows for plenty of parking, Jim Hammond said.

“We’re taking away the police station and the ambulance, which creates a lot of traffic, so I think I’d be pretty happy,” he said. “I think that if I could look across my street and see a park kind of setting, I’d be pretty happy.”

Looking for money to fund the project will pose a problem, especially when so many other items - like the condition of the roads - need attention, Avis Sweitzer said.

“I think that’s a pipe dream myself,” she said.

Raising the money will take time, Cyndie Hammond concedes, but she thinks it will happen within five to seven years, she said.

“That park (Falls Park) was built from over $1 million in in-kind donations and grants and labor,” she said. “If we can do it with a park, we can do it with a town square.”

If Post Falls lacks anything, it’s a thriving downtown, said Kerri Thoreson, director of the Post Falls chamber of commerce. The Town Square project could help fill that gap, she said.

“We need to make it an attractive community for people living here,” she said. “There’s that sense of community pride. There are so many intangibles (for why the Town Square project is a good idea).”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: To comment Post Falls residents who would like to comment on the town square plan should contact Post Falls Urban Planner Jerry Basler at 773-8708 or 408 Spokane Street. The deadline for initial comments is Feb. 23. After that, a public hearing will be scheduled for more input.