Centennial Trail Relocation Being Discussed Traffic, Obstructed Views Along 1.4 Mile Stretch By Northwest Boulevard Makes Trail Use Hazardous

Nobody’s idea of a recreational path includes the problems of a major commercial thoroughfare.

However, the Centennial Trail on its 1.4-mile stretch along Northwest Boulevard combines danger from passing and crossing cars, dust, noise, views obstructed by buildings and billboards and bike lane markings nearly obliterated by travel wear.

This four-lane hazard to the trail’s mission could be removed with a combination of effort and cooperation on behalf of several parties, supporters say.

A new trail could be built along the Spokane River and a new wooded lane connecting to North Idaho College’s portion of the trail where the river leaves Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Spokane businessman John Stone hopes to move the trail through the vacant 73 acres of land he recently purchased between Northwest Boulevard and the Spokane River.

The move would require the help of several parties, including two railroads, a lumber mill, NIC and the city of Coeur d’Alene. The city owns the waterfront office building and wastewater treatment plant in the middle of the project.

At worst, Stone envisions the trail - which attracts bicyclists, joggers, walkers and rollerbladers - to enter his two parcels of property about where it leaves Seltice Way. At best, it would enter his land along the river if it first could pass through a large piece owned by Interstate Concrete to the west.

The trail would travel Stone’s .9-mile river edge, pass under the U.S. Highway 95 overpass and connect to city property that formerly was the landscaped grounds of the city office building that was the Osprey Restaurant several years ago.

Because the Osprey building is built on the river bulkhead, the trail would skirt to the east around the Osprey and the wastewater treatment plant. It would connect to a new road that the city and NIC hope to build from Northwest Boulevard to an extension to Hubbard Street leading to the campus.

A bike lane to bring students to and from the college already is incorporated into the Hubbard Street plans, but these plans still need the approval of NIC trustees and the moving of DeArmond Mill logpiles that currently block the path.

Even then, mill administrators aren’t eager to bring path users close to mill operations.

“I don’t think that’s advisable with the logging trucks,” said Jim English, president of Idaho Forest Industries, DeArmond’s parent company. “We’ll have to make some adjustments to the log area. This will be very difficult because we don’t have enough room already.”

English said the city’s plans for Hubbard Street are acceptable, but dreams of the city and possibly NIC acquiring the mill property are unlikely because the mill still has a potential life of 50 more years.

“It’s a modern mill on a coupled piece of property,” combining the river, railroads and truck way for its success, English said. “It will remain operative until somebody can buy us out. It’s a small but very efficient mill.”

The city hopes to build the new NIC access street in two years.

“It’s in our capital improvement plan for the summer of 2001,” said Gordon Dobler, city engineer. “We’ve been working on the plans for a year already with input from NIC and the Fort Grounds residents. We figure to put a bike path down Hubbard. Physically there’s room, but we’ll have to negotiate with the Union Pacific.”

Hubbard Street’s flirtation with the railroad isn’t the Centennial Trail’s only railroad obstacle. The trail would have to cross the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern railroads at the north end of the new route and ideally would follow the railroad bed under the Highway 95 overpass and around the Osprey and wastewater parcels.

Safety issues are the main concern, according to Mike Furtney, Union Pacific spokesman in the San Francisco office.

“Our general rule is the farther they (public byways) are from the railroad, the better we like them,” Furtney said. Possible solutions may be grade separations (differences in elevation between the railroad and path) and proper crossings, which can cost $300,000 to $400,000.

Unless the Centennial Trail enters his property along the river from the north (along the Interstate Concrete riverfront), Stone believes the trail can cross the railroads along with the road that will connect his 20 acres along the river to his 53 acres on Northwest Boulevard.

“We’ll do anything to get it off Northwest Boulevard,” Stone said. “The logical thing is to get the trail close to the river so we can connect it to NIC. We’re told by the city that we can’t be denied access from one parcel to the other.

“We’re committed to the trail,” said Stone, 56, who has a home on Lake Coeur d’Alene and is a former NIC computer class instructor. “I run the trails, and my 83-year-old mother walks them.”

Stone’s development company, Riverstone L.L.C., bought the property, which is the site of a long-ago-removed W-I Forest Products mill, for about $6 million. The 4,250 feet along the river probably will be “high-end” residential, he said, and the property bordering Northwest Boulevard would be office and commercial sites. The city of Coeur d’Alene would have to annex the property to provide sewer and water services.

Final development plans will be submitted to the city later this summer, according to real estate agent Jack Beebe of Coldwell-Banker Schneidmiller Real Estate.

“We’re hoping for annexation in early fall and to be under construction in the spring,” Beebe said.

“This will draw to lot of interest to downtown Coeur d’Alene, for which the Centennial Trail is a major amenity,” he said. “We want to get it off Northwest Boulevard and have it be done right. This will change the feel of downtown Coeur d’Alene.”