Cda Condo Project Sells The High Life Construction Begins In September On City’S Second-Tallest Building

Chartered helicopter rides gave visitors a sense of the view from a new condominium project Tuesday.

The vista stretched from Fernan Lake to Tubbs Hill to City Beach to Cougar Bay.

“Two hundred and seventy degrees,” said Shawn McMahon of South Park Development LLC, developer of McEuen Terrace.

The view doesn’t come cheap. Two penthouses are selling for $769,000 each. One is still available, the developers said.

Construction is scheduled to begin in early September on the $10 million luxury condominium project at the edge of downtown.

The building will have 22 units, each with a floor-to-ceiling view of Lake Coeur d’Alene. Starting price for the three-bedroom units is $349,000.

The 15-story building will be one of the tallest downtown, second only to the 18-story Coeur d’Alene Resort.

In addition to condos, McEuen Terrace will have 15,000 square feet of office space. The project’s address is 701 Front St.

About one-third of the condos are pre-sold, which allows South Park Development to move ahead with construction, McMahon said.

The company applied for a building permit last month, and is waiting for the final OK from the city, he said.

Four remaining homes on the 0.63 acre site will be demolished or moved this week. Construction should start by Sept. 1 and end about a year later, McMahon said.

About half of the pre-sold units have been purchased by Coeur d’Alene residents. The others have attracted interest from all over the country, McMahon said.

John and Hattie Eilertsen of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., are among the buyers. The couple also plans to rent space in McEuen Terrace for a software company they own.

“We’ve been visiting Coeur d’Alene for well over 10 years. We decided there was nothing holding us in Michigan,” John Eilertsen said. “When it’s done, we’ll move.”

Since most of the employees of CIT Communications work out of their homes, the software company is fairly portable, Eilertsen said.

McEuen Terrace has been in the making since 1997, when the city of Coeur d’Alene rezoned downtown neighborhoods to a higher density to encourage redevelopment.

At one time, three condo proposals were discussed for downtown Coeur d’Alene. McEuen Terrace is the first to move forward.