Center would go to Ramsey Road area

Coeur d’Alene plans to build a community center next to Ramsey Park if the city gets a $20 million Salvation Army grant.

An ad hoc committee working on the grant application for the Kroc grant selected the 12-acre site on Ramsey Road on Wednesday. The city put a $400,000 down payment this year on the property that was once uses by the East Side Highway District and includes a large pit.

The city or the Coeur d’Alene Parks Foundation now have three years to pay off the $967,000 property that city leaders initially had envisioned using as a new location for the McEuen baseball diamond.

Mayor Sandi Bloem said the city also has two other sites, which she couldn’t disclose, that could serve as the Kroc Center or the McEuen location. She said the Ramsey property is the best choice for the Kroc Center, and the city must wait to see if it gets the grant before any final planning decisions are made.

“The No. 1 thing to remember is nothing on McEuen will be changed unless equal land or better is found,” Bloem said.

Coeur d’Alene is the only Idaho city that will compete with applications from 12 other western states for five to seven grants to build Kroc Centers.

McDonald’s heiress Joan B. Kroc bestowed $1.5 billion to the Salvation Army – the largest donation ever given to a charity – to build community centers modeled after the $50 million Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in San Diego.

“The success of being awarded a Kroc center was dependent upon the ability to have quality sites donated to the Salvation Army,” Steve Griffitts, chairman of the site selection sub-committee, said in a press release. Griffits also is president of local job recruiter Jobs Plus.

Griffitts said the Ramsey Road property is the best choice because it is within a three-mile radius of all Coeur d’Alene area schools, next to a high concentration of residential housing, offers easy access and is logically situated next to existing ball fields that offer additional parking.

The city is having a public meeting tonight at 6 p.m. in the Coeur d’Alene High School Library to give locals an opportunity to ask questions, share idea and give other input on the grant application that is due Feb. 15.

For more information, call city Project Coordinator Victoria Bruno at 769-2204 or write victoria@cdaid.org.