Hagadone firm on garden plan

Duane Hagadone is willing to pay the entire tab – perhaps $20 million – to build a memorial garden, but only if the city is willing to close two blocks of Coeur d’Alene’s busiest downtown street.

Hagadone and his team of local consultants officially presented their plan Monday night to the Coeur d’Alene City Council, about 200 residents and a local cable television audience. It was the first time the multimillionaire businessman has offered to foot the entire bill, always saying before that the city would have to pay for rerouting downtown traffic.

Hagadone is willing to give Coeur d’Alene the “gift” of a memorial garden, dedicated to the native’s parents, only if two blocks of Sherman Avenue are closed.

Yet, consultants for both the city and the Coeur d’Alene Downtown Association, which represents about 300 merchants, insisted that Sherman must remain open and said there are ways to incorporate the street into the memorial garden proposal. They added that the gardens could help enhance the gateway to the city and reconnect downtown to the waterfront.

If Sherman is closed, the consultants fear merchants will migrate to Lakeside Avenue, in time making it the main downtown street and hurting the remaining Sherman businesses.

“The garden concept is great but Sherman Avenue must stay open,” said Rod Stevens of Leland Consulting in Seattle. “It’s the front door to downtown. It’s a postcard sense of arrival in the city.”

The downtown association wants the city to appoint a task force to work with Hagadone to come up with a way to make the garden work while keeping Sherman open to traffic.

Hagadone sternly rejected any notion of including Sherman Avenue in the garden concept, saying the busy street would kill the ambiance.

“This one is for my parents,” Hagadone said. “There will be no compromise. It’s going to be first class or I don’t want to do it. It’s my $20 million contribution to the community.”

Misinformation is why so many people are against closing Sherman, Hagadone said, adding that it’s his mission to properly educate the public. That’s why he plans to have an open house at the Coeur d’Alene Resort this week to give residents a chance to look at the garden illustrations, proposed new route for downtown traffic and ask questions. No date or time has been set but Hagadone said perhaps Thursday and Friday.

The public wasn’t allowed to comment during the nearly four-hour workshop, except to express frustration that they couldn’t easily see the maps and illustrations. Two people stormed out of the meeting at the Kootenai County Administration building.

Mayor Sandi Bloem said the public will get its chance either during a January workshop or in a February advisory vote.

The council didn’t comment on the proposal except to ask a few questions, many of which were about the potential to lose downtown parking.

Hagadone said there is an abundance of parking and that the Third Street parking lot is never at capacity, only having a 64 percent occupancy rate in August, among the busiest months. His consultants added that about 20 new parking spaces would be available in downtown Coeur d’Alene even though street parking would be eliminated on the two blocks of Lakeside between Northwest Boulevard and Second Street and then between Second Street and Sherman Avenue.

About 35 of those spaces would be along the new entrance to the Independence Point parking lot, which would go behind the museum where the railroad tracks were recently removed. Another 36 parking spots would be made by closing a block of First Street between Lakeside and Sherman.

Hagadone said the memorial garden is completely independent of his plan to expand The Coeur d’Alene Resort by building a new tower of rooms. Even if the garden proposal fails, Hagadone said he will build the tower, possibly within two to five years. He has two potential locations for the new tower on the south side of Sherman, including on top of the A.G Edwards building on the northwest corner of Sherman and Front. That building is connected to the resort retail shops.

Initially, Hagadone planned to build the tower across Sherman where the current Johnston building sits. He recently changed plans so he could build the tower without depending on the closure of Sherman.

If the city agrees to close Sherman, Hagadone said work on rerouting traffic to Lakeside Avenue and then back onto Sherman via Second Street could be finished by Memorial Day. Sherman Avenue would remain open during the busy summer months and then in October, Hagadone envisions closing it to begin work on what he calls a world-class garden that could draw more people to Coeur d’Alene than the lake.

The gardens would be free and open 24 hours a day, unlike the previous proposal, which called for closing them at night to reduce vandalism.

Hagadone said he would incorporate the former Wilma Theater lot at the corner of Sherman and Second, which he owns, into the garden plan. The current grassy lot would have space for people to buy seeds and flowers related to the garden, and seating where people could sign up for garden tours and hear presentations by the master gardener.

The main entrance to the garden, at the intersection of Sherman and Second, would be raised and have a view overlooking both the flowers and the lake.

The rare flowers and bushes, imported from around the world, would cover about 3.4 acres and have numerous paths winding through them.

Even though Sherman wouldn’t have car traffic, a sidewalk would be maintained in front of the businesses along that stretch including Hagadone’s Bonsai Bistro restaurant. The Centennial Trail would run along the sidewalk and down to Front Avenue, which would be closed to all traffic, except vehicles accessing the resort.