Mill site could go to colleges

Proponents of a higher education corridor along the Spokane River in Coeur d’Alene will be able to buy a key piece of land for $10 million.

Developer Marshall Chesrown has agreed to sell the DeArmond Mill site to local colleges for roughly what it costs him to acquire it.

“That’s a nice price for a very valuable property,” said Tony Berns, executive director of the Lake City Development Corp. “The way the (real estate market) craziness has been going, we’re happy it’s not $15 million or $20 million.”

Chesrown was out of town and unavailable for comment Thursday.

His firm, Black Rock Development, will purchase the 17-acre mill site from Stimson Lumber Co. in a deal expected to close within 2 1/2 years. The land lies adjacent to North Idaho College and is strategic to local colleges’ efforts to create an educational corridor to the north. The corridor is envisioned as an educational hub for the region – a place where students can earn different levels of degrees and access resources from NIC, University of Idaho and Lewis-Clark State College.

Ideally, the colleges would purchase the entire 17 acres, Berns said. However, a consultant will be hammering out a master plan for the corridor over the next six to eight months, which will help determine what should go where and how much land is needed.

The $10 million purchase price could come from a variety of sources, according to Berns. College foundations, the Idaho Legislature and the city of Coeur d’Alene could be asked to contribute. Requests for federal funding are also a possibility.

“It’s really in the pretty elemental stages right now,” NIC spokesman Kent Propst said. “Right now, we don’t know where the money’s going to come from, we don’t know what it’s going to look like.”

Because Stimson plans to operate the mill for a few more years, there’s time to craft a funding package, Berns said.

The land purchase has been in discussion for a long time, Propst said, but Chesrown’s commitment means it’s time to get serious about finding money to make it happen.

“We can talk and draw plans and we can speculate all we want, but at some point someone’s going to have to start writing checks,” Propst said. “Nobody in higher education is flush with cash right now.”

In addition to the colleges, the corridor effort includes the city of Coeur d’Alene and its urban renewal agency, the Lake City Development Corp.

The mill site will help with NIC’s land needs in the short term, Propst said, “but long term, that parcel of land isn’t going to come close to meeting the needs of North Idaho College.”

NIC also is in discussion with bluegrass farmer Wayne Meyer about purchasing 120 to 140 acres of his family’s land in the Rathdrum Prairie for a professional-technical education center. That purchase likely won’t happen before the mill site purchase, Propst said.