Hagadone Gets Lakeside Plot; State Gets Rock Pit Transportation Board Gives Up Land Next To Centennial Trail

It’s final - Hagadone Corp. will get a small parcel of state-owned land next to the Centennial Trail along Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The Idaho Transportation Board voted 4-1 Thursday to approve a land exchange with the company, through which the state will get gravel pit property.

Hagadone also agreed to help upgrade the trail to Silver Beach with a sprinkler system, landscaping and a drinking fountain.

The board set a July 1999 deadline for the company to complete the promised landscaping and improvements.

Board Chairman Chuck Winder said he would have supported keeping the one-third acre of former road right of way public if some group had come forward with a plan to do that, but none did.

“If the community really wanted it, they could’ve come together and said, ‘We’ll do this,”’ Winder said.

Said board member Leon Smith of Twin Falls, “The only thing I’ve seen is just negative comments. … I haven’t seen any positive proposals.”

Former East Side Highway District Commissioner Dick Edinger had presented petitions with 474 signatures against the exchange to the state Parks Board earlier, but that group approved the project because of the promised improvements.

Edinger told the Parks Board he didn’t have the resources to come up with a fancy proposal for the land - he just had volunteers. He said the land, adjacent to a trailhead and near the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, would have made a good picnic area for trail users.

Transportation Board member John Combo of Idaho Falls said he voted against the swap Thursday because he’s worked since 1990 to help create the trail section along the lake’s shore.

“Ninety-five percent of the shoreline of Lake Coeur d’Alene is in private ownership,” Combo said. “I was trying to keep as much of that around the lake in public ownership as we can. I agree with Dick Edinger. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

The plot won’t continue to have a view of the lake, state officials noted, because Hagadone plans to develop the property between it and the lake with condominiums.

John Barlow of Hagadone Corp. said the state Parks Department, which operates the trail along the lake, “would get a much improved piece of property” because of the work the company would do along the trail.

Plus, he said, the piece of land “will go onto the tax rolls, start paying property tax, and you, the Transportation Department, can use that value for much-needed gravel reserves. Certainly we felt that was a win-win situation.”

The deal calls for the company to install sprinklers and pumps, pay the power bills for those, help with planting grass and trees, build and operate a drinking fountain on the trail near the Beachhouse, build a landscaped berm to separate its property from the public trail and sign a waiver saying it won’t complain about noise or smells from public restrooms at the trailhead or other trail use.

The department adjusted the property line to make the parcel slightly smaller, to allow more room for landscaping on the remaining state land.

Department engineer Steve Stokes said the deal won’t go forward unless the gravel pit land is approved for mining. It’s adjacent to an existing state gravel pit. Stokes said the Coeur d’Alene Tribe has concerns about nearby Lake Creek.

“That is a concern for us,” he said. “I think it’s a concern even with our existing (gravel) source, whether we enlarge it or not.”