State Agrees To Boulevard Funding Reconstruction Of Northwest Gets $2.5 Million Boost

The state agreed Thursday to match the $2.5 million Coeur d’Alene has committed to reconstructing Northwest Boulevard.

Mayor Steve Judy, who was in Boise on Thursday for an Idaho Transportation Department board meeting, said the city will start planning and engineering immediately.

“They have to come up with the money and paperwork. It looks like it might happen this fiscal year,” Judy said.

The plan calls for the complete reconstruction of Northwest Boulevard from the Interstate 90 interchange to Sherman Avenue.

The project would split the street with a median and include trees planted along the edges and, at some points, in the middle of the boulevard.

Utility lines would be relocated underground. New signs would give better directions to North Idaho College. And a light would be installed and improvements would be made at Lincoln Way, creating a new entrance to the college campus.

The state must find the money for the project, said Scott Stokes, district engineer for the Idaho Transportation Department.

“I don’t know where (the money) will be available or when we will get it,” Stokes said.

Every year, the Transportation Department’s board approves the budget for construction. The Northwest Boulevard project is not part of that budget now.

“What will likely happen is that we will have a revision of that program where we will try to accommodate this project,” Stokes said.

Another state project, the new $10 million Interstate 90 interchange at Northwest Boulevard, is scheduled to be under construction this spring.

That project should take two years. Judy said he hopes to complete the Northwest Boulevard reconstruction project at the same time.

“It makes sense to do it all at once,” Judy said. “The shorter time we disrupt the commerce and people moving through there the better.”

The interchange, the development of 70 acres as part of the Riverstone subdivision and the Northwest Boulevard redesign will finally give Coeur d’Alene the entrance it deserves, Judy said.

“A lot of people who visit tell us that the first impression they get of Coeur d’Alene is not a great one,” Judy said. “This will change that.”