Waterfront Squabble’S Nothing New

Duane Hagadone opposes plans to move the parking.

Attorney Steve Bell and hundreds of petitioners oppose a proposal to close the Third Street boat launch.

Everyone seems to support reassembling a historic carousel on the Coeur d’Alene lakeshore, but no one wants it to block the view at Independence Point.

In other words, the situation in Coeur d’Alene is normal.

Nothing fires the passions of Coeur d’Alene residents as much as proposed changes to their waterfront (See: hydroplanes, library, McEuen Field, botanical garden).

Once again, people are choosing sides to safeguard their favorite parts of the waterfront, as the city attempts to pick a plan that will transform Lake Coeur d’Alene’s north shore.

Meanwhile, City Council members are diving for cover. And members of the Urban Renewal Agency are making appointments to have their heads examined for volunteering to oversee the controversial changes.

That’s as it should be.

The public greenbelt is Coeur d’Alene’s signature, hugging picturesque Lake Coeur d’Alene as it stretches from the Spokane River to Sanders Beach. Each Coeur d’Alene resident has a stake in it. Nothing major should be done to McEuen Field, the Third Street boat docks, Tubbs Hill, or any other feature of the public waterfront without consensus support.

Still, I believe Coeur d’Alene is about to blow it.

After a year of public input, meetings and open houses, Walker-Macy, a Portland consulting firm, has prepared a solid blueprint to improve the popular recreation area. Unveiled last month, the plan would polish four tired ball diamonds. Add public art. Remove eyesores. Build a plaza to serve as a community gathering place. It’d be a shame if the usual squabbling resulted in the status quo.

Do I like the entire plan? No.

Downtown businesses are being shortsighted by insisting that parking remain exactly where it is, at Independence Point and the end of Third Street. The current parking configuration has done little to “save” downtown. If anything, the downtown has too much parking nine months of the year. Yet, I’d gladly cede store owners their smudge of waterfront concrete if it’s moved slightly to make room for a huge plaza with fountains and other amenities, east of The Coeur d’Alene resort.

The plaza and the preservation of McEuen Field recreation are the keys to the whole revitalization effort. Patterned after Pioneer Square in Portland, the plaza would be the center of entertainment and downtown events. It would give residents a reason to go downtown for a reason other than visiting City Beach or walking the boardwalk and Tubbs Hill. Who knows? Maybe they’d linger and poke their heads into a shop or two before returning home.

Unfortunately, construction of the plaza means moving the boat launch, which opens another can of worms. Not only are boaters solidly opposed to relocating the popular launch, but such a move comes with strings attached. Federal money helped purchase Tubbs Hill and the launch. Also, it helped build the Third Street parking lot. No one can touch those areas without providing a comparable replacement.

Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if everything came apart. The forces aligned against this plan are stronger than the few health club owners who got the ball rolling to thwart last fall’s effort to build a community center. Hagadone, the most influential man in town, editorialized against the Walker-Macy plan last Sunday in his Coeur d’Alene Press. The editorial groused that the recommendations would block “views and vistas” and eliminate 290 parking spots.

Actually, the plan proposes to rearrange parking slightly, moving spaces about a block farther away from Hagadone’s mall and his tour boats - not eliminating spaces. But that detail got lost in Hagadone’s call to return to Square One. His opposition poses a major problem for the Urban Renewal Agency. Maybe an insurmountable one.

Hagadone’s concerns should be taken seriously. For decades, he’s been the main power broker in Coeur d’Alene, particularly since the mid-1980s when he transformed the old North Shore Resort into The Coeur d’Alene resort. Single-handedly, he’s changed the Coeur d’Alene skyline - for the better. Without his vision, there’s no Coeur d’Alene resort, plaza mall, boardwalk, or resort golf course with its famous floating green.

However, Hagadone, now 67, is a man with a burning desire to sail his yacht around the world. In 10 to 15 years, he may not be a major Coeur d’Alene player.

The dreamers, such as Charlie Nipp and Nancy Sue Wallace of the Urban Renewal Agency, should hear Hagadone out. But they also should realize they’re building something that will exist long after he - and the rest of us - are gone. The renewal effort isn’t about selling softball bats at the Sports Cellar. Or more prime rib dinners at Beverly’s. It’s about the 21st Century. A gift for future generations from us who lived most of our lives in the 20th Century.

But I’m a realist. I’ve seen enough lakeshore fights to realize the Walker-Macy plan soon could be on life support. If that happens, so be it. Coeur d’Alene’s waterfront on a bad day remains the envy of most other towns.