LCDC Budgets $12M For McEuen Work

Lake City Development Corp. expects to spend $18.6 million in 2013, triple the amount it did two years ago, in large part due to the urban renewal agency’s commitment to fund a big chunk of the McEuen Field redevelopment project. The draft budget pencils in drawing $12 million from the $16.75 million line of credit the agency has with Washington Trust Bank to pay for upgrades to the downtown park’s redesign - a project set to begin this month and one of the major reasons LCDC was formed in 1997. The agency estimates it will pay the bank back around $2 million off that borrowed sum in the fiscal year. “This is a conservative budgeting approach,” LCDC director Tony Berns wrote in a summary of the proposed budget, which is up for adoption today. “Given that the taxing entities … will most likely increase the levy rates to offset the valuation decreases for 2011, which will result in higher tax increment revenues”/ Tom Hasslinger , Coeur d’Alene Press. More here. (Kathy Plonka 2011 SR file photo of girls playing extreme Frisbee on McEuen Field)

Question: Are you ready to break ground on McEuen Field?