Dozens more condos planned for downtown

Plans for 73 more luxury condos are under way downtown, even as Coeur d’Alene’s leaders ponder what a spate of high-end development will mean for the community.

The Towers at Ridge Pointe is the latest in a series of condo projects proposed for the city’s central core. A Montana investment group plans to start construction in August on the $60 million, three-building Towers project, which would be built on 11 acres overlooking the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course. The property is a forested, rocky outcropping, adjacent to Lost Avenue and 19th Street.

Prices would range from $450,000 to $1.8 million, if the condos went on sale today, said Duffy Smock, a Windermere Realtor and marketing director for the project.

“We have the population now, and we’ve received the media attention that’s necessary for this type of development,” he said.

Five separate luxury condo projects are in the works for Coeur d’Alene’s downtown area, or along Northwest Boulevard. One example is The Terraces – Coeur d’Alene Resort owner Duane Hagadone’s plans for condos above the resort golf course’s 13th tee. The individual units are valued at about $2.5 million.

The spate of new condos will help Coeur d’Alene’s urban renewal agency reach its goal of increasing the number of housing units downtown. But if downtown gets too exclusive and pricey, it could become an enclave of absentee owners, who visit vacation homes only a few times per year, said Dave Rucker, another downtown developer.

“I’m not sure that does a lot to support the downtown,” Rucker told members of city’s urban renewal agency Wednesday.

Rucker, a resident of Ventura, Calif., introduced agency members to a new term: scraping. In resort towns where land becomes more valuable than the structures on it, older houses are “scraped” away to make room for high-end developments.

“Be conscious of the whole trend,” Rucker told the urban renewal agency. “Look for ways to minimize the number of little homes scraped, or … build modern ones with a similar architectural style.”

Rucker owns a number of commercial and apartment buildings in Coeur d’Alene, plus a vacant lot behind the Roosevelt Inn. He initially planned to build 22 apartments on the site, with rents in the $800-per-month range. But the high cost of construction may force him to convert some of the units into condos, Rucker said.

Urban renewal agency members pondered ways to keep downtown living diverse and affordable for an array of residents.

“The issue of absentee owners is already occurring,” said Denny Davis, a Coeur d’Alene attorney and agency member. In his Fort Grounds neighborhood, one of the homes has been purchased by an investor and sits empty most of the year.

“We want people who will be there to support the bakery and the hardware store,” said Dave Patzer, another agency member.

The urban renewal agency has been working to encourage new housing downtown. Though the city’s population grew by more than 40 percent over the last 15 years, most of the construction occurred on Coeur d’Alene’s suburban fringes. More people living downtown create a clientele for local restaurants and shops, and pedestrian traffic also helps keep the streets safer at night.

Smock, the project’s marketing director, said at least some of the demand for luxury downtown living is coming from local residents. He has reservations on 19 of the 25 units in the Towers’ first building.

“Eighty-five percent of them are from local residents,” he said. “Some people will use them for second homes, for sure, but there’s a local market for this kind of living as well.”

The Towers will be a gated community, with eight of the 11 acres left as open space. The three condo buildings were planned around existing trees and vegetation, Smock said.

“There was a lot of sensitivity to preserving the integrity of the site,” he said.