Deal adds 8 spots to Tubbs Hill lot

The east Tubbs Hill parking lot is getting eight new spaces and is going one-way.

The Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission unanimously agreed Tuesday to give a special use permit to neighboring property owner Don Anderson to allow for the additional parking.

Anderson asked the city to expand the lot so Hanna and Associates, an advertising agency, could use the slots during work hours and Tubbs Hill users could use them the rest of the time. The city will maintain and plow the lot.

Anderson said work will begin this spring.

Hanna and Associates wants to make the waterfront building owned by Anderson a foot taller, remodeling it into two floors to add a conference room and space for more employees.

The city required Anderson to provide additional parking spaces. There’s no room on the cramped Lakeshore Drive lot for more off-street parking.

In exchange for the eight new parking spaces, Anderson will grant the city an easement across his property so the city parking lot can have a second exit, easing congestion by going to one-way traffic.

“This will be a lot easier,” Coeur d’Alene Parks Director Doug Eastwood said.

The lot now has one entrance, which is also the exit. Cars have to back out of parking spaces and turn around to leave. Often, drivers back into the wooden posts that separate the parking lot from the trailhead.

The new lot will have angle parking and the separate exit will mean drivers no longer have to turn around.

Anderson also will help the city finish landscaping the north end of the park at 10th Street and Mountain Avenue, including extending the irrigation system and planting trees.

The city has other shared parking agreements, such as at the Third Street parking lot.

The Tubbs Hill Foundation, which has no jurisdiction over city decisions, recommended in June to accept the shared parking agreement.

Yet some members disliked the idea. They said the city should get more out of the deal than a few new parking spaces.

Because the Hanna and Associates building is on the Lake Coeur d’Alene shoreline, it must comply with the city’s 20-foot height restrict. Currently the building is 19 feet tall.