Merchants react to plan

Coeur d’Alene merchants responded cautiously Friday to Duane Hagadone’s expansion plans for the Coeur d’Alene Resort, which include closing part of Sherman Avenue to build botanical gardens on the main entrance to the downtown shopping district.

Some applauded the idea, while others said they needed more time to study how rerouting traffic would affect downtown access.

Yet others remarked on Hagadone’s tremendous political clout in his hometown.

“I can’t imagine anyone having the power to close a street,” said Rick Crossley, co-owner of Crossley Upholstery & Fine Interiors, who chuckled at the idea.

Hagadone heads a vast tourism, real estate and publishing conglomerate that includes about 50 different companies. The Coeur d’Alene Resort and Golf Course alone employ more than 1,000 people during the summer months.

On Thursday, the 72-year-old businessman unveiled plans for a new resort tower to a crowd of about 100 local business people. The tower, perhaps 12 stories tall, would be built on the corner of Sherman and Second Street.

Hagadone’s plans call for closing Sherman Avenue from Lakeside Avenue to Second. He also wants to close a block of First Street between Sherman and Lakeside.

Hagadone Hospitality will submit formal plans to the city of Coeur d’Alene next week. If it wins City Council approval, construction could begin within two years.

On Thursday, Hagadone told the crowd that the street closures are a necessity. Consultants told him it wasn’t practical to ask tower guests to cross a busy street to reach the Coeur d’Alene Resort, which houses restaurants, a spa and shopping.

Instead, he’s proposing turning the street into a city-owned green space, where Hagadone Hospitality would maintain extensive gardens of specialty flowers as a tribute to his parents. Hagadone’s Casco Bay home is a botanical showpiece, with more than 10,000 plants.

“Maybe some downtown merchants will say they don’t want to lose traffic,” Hagadone said. “But there’s no question in my mind that this will help sales downtown.”

The tower would attract 88,000 guests annually; the gardens would attract thousands more, according to Hagadone.

Merlin Berger tends to agree. Flowers are kind of like “motherhood and apple pie,” said the owner of Frame of Mind, a downtown gallery.

“Personally, I think they would be a tremendous draw,” Berger said. “The only question I think anybody has is, how would it affect traffic flow? I think those are problems that could be addressed.”

Other merchants expressed reservations.

“If we close Sherman and reroute traffic, our downtown would probably die,” said John Schults, co-owner of JJ Shoes and Boutique.

Locals are likely to avoid downtown during the construction and a period of adjustment to the new traffic patterns, Schults said. It might bounce back in the future, but some of the smaller store owners couldn’t weather the wait, he said.

Schults has operated his store on Sherman Avenue for 16 years. He said he’s developed a loyal clientele that comes for European brands and other hard-to-find shoes.

“We’ve established ourselves,” he said. “But I’m concerned about some of the others.”

If businesses close, the empty storefronts would hurt the entire downtown, Schults said.

It’s too soon to draw conclusions, said Terry Cooper, owner of Simple Pleasures Gifts and Home Decor, and a board member of the Coeur d’Alene Downtown Association.

“We need to take time to look at everything that Mr. Hagadone has had the privilege of planning,” Cooper said. “We would like to be able to review the traffic flow pattern. We also want the community’s reactions.”

Downtown merchants depend on sales from both locals and tourists, Cooper said. Both constituencies need to be considered, and a number of issues need to be addressed, including potential impact on public parking, he said.

Hagadone hired J-U-B Engineering to assess the feasibility of closing Sherman for two blocks and rerouting traffic. The firm was also responsible for the traffic studies that led to a reconfiguration of Lakeside Avenue in the early 1990s.

Lakeside was punched through to Northwest Boulevard, making it an alternate route through downtown – part of plans to slow traffic on Sherman Avenue, divert truck traffic, and make the area more pedestrian friendly.

Officials at J-U-B Engineering couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. However, in his presentation Thursday, Hagadone said his plan would relieve congestion on the portions of Sherman Avenue that would remain open.

“This will improve downtown traffic flow,” he said.

Jim Elder, a member of the Lake City Development Corp., said Hagadone’s plans for a botanical garden have merit from an urban renewal standpoint.

“As you try to resurrect an urban area, you look for destination features. They’re hard to come by,” Elder said.

Closing part of Sherman Avenue could also reopen discussions about the potential for a pedestrian mall downtown, he said. In other cities, including Denver, pedestrian malls have brought shoppers back to downtown cores, Elder said.

The idea has been discussed in the past, “but it was too bold at the time,” Elder said. “Maybe this is the way to begin that effort … but that’s my visionary thought,” not Hagadone’s.

City Councilman Al Hassell said the community needs time to digest Hagadone’s plans.

In terms of beauty, the gardens would probably be a great addition to downtown, Hassell said. However, “we need to figure out how it would affect the merchants, how it would affect the parking, and how it would affect traffic flow.”