June 29, 2023

Heartland leads big waterfront development effort in Coeur d'Alene

Photo via Heartland [enlarge]

Last summer, looking east, the new park is next to Areas 5A and 13 (top), now subject to the latest RFPs.

A little north and upriver from Idaho's Lake Coeur d'Alene is the former Stimson Atlas Mill property. The city of Coeur d'Alene acquired those 47 acres back in 2018, then later transferred the waterfront property to its urban renewal agency, Ignite CDA. (It's also a former EPA brownfields site, but wasn't seriously polluted; more on that below.)

During recent years, including another city-acquired parcel, about 70 acres has been — or will be — offered for redevelopment, with Seattle firm Heartland leading the city's advisory team. It was also advising the city before its acquisition of the old mill property, now dubbed the Atlas Waterfront. That's on the north side of the Spokane River and Centennial Trail, and south of Interstate 90, near the municipal golf course.

Since 2020, RFPs have been issued periodically for its phased redevelopment, now with about 382 units in the pipeline, plus around 10,000 square feet of planned commercial space. A 12-acre city park recently opened on the shore.

“It's dense for Coeur d'Alene. It's a courageous move for out there,” says Heartland's Ben Wharton. “This site was untouched for years because it was such a heavy lift. This is a huge deal. The city's never done anything like this before. It was the last big piece of undeveloped land near Coeur d'Alene.”

Based on the RFPs issued to date, around 650 units, both rentals and for the sales market, are programmed for the Atlas Waterfront. Future RFPs for the untouched northeast shoulder could raise that count, and with a more affordable component.

The latest such request for proposals is for Area 5A, which offers 1.3 acres right next to the new park. The RFP first ran this week in the DJC. Responses are due to Heartland by Aug. 18. Roads and utilities should be in place by the end of this summer. (Ignite has been bearing that cost, and will continue to do so.) Heartland hopes to select the winning proposal by this fall, with a land sale next year.

Rendering via Pivot North [enlarge]

Also looking east, Area 13 is slated to have three condo buildings, with a brewpub in the near building.

Area 5A is envisioned to support “high-density, mixed-use proposals from developers,” per the RFP. Zoning would allow a 45-foot-tall mixed-use building with up to 6,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. RFP materials suggest that a 60-foot height could also be achieved, “provided the development concept creates clear and demonstrable public benefit.”

The number of units isn't specified. Two levels of parking, structured and underground, could have 185 stalls (one indication of the possible unit count). The zoning max is around 111,050 square feet.

Early planning to date has been done by Heartland, GGLO, Bernard Wills Architects, the landscape architect; Hawley Troxell, legal; and Welch Comer, the civil engineer and surveyor. Most of the development to date, or in the late planning stages, has been single-family housing and townhouses.

Toll Brothers is among the builders now at work. It lists 50 luxury townhouses for the sales market, beginning at around $794,000. The premium townhouses go for over $1 million. A single-family home developed by Atlas Building Group sold last year for $3.1 million, per the Coeur d'Alene Press.

On the west end of the property, aka Areas 10 and 12, developers deChase Miksis and Edlen & Co. are constructing eight three-story buildings with 150 rental units and some ground-floor retail space. That seems to be opening in phases as the Bo Apartments. Edlen says that rents will be affordable to households in a range between 100% and 120% of area median income. (Edlen is based in Portland, and deChase Miksis in Boise, where architect Pivot North also has its headquarters.)

South of Area 5A and west of the city park is Area 13, with over an acre that overlooks the trail and riverfront. “That's really the keystone piece of the project,” says Wharton. “It's probably the best site of the project.”

Last month, Ignite selected deChase Miksis to develop the site, again working with Pivot North, with the land sale expected by year's end. Three three-story buildings are to have 24 to 30 condos over retail and restaurants with outdoor seating. The anchor restaurant is to be Western Proper, which with its Western Collective brewery is a well-established presence in Boise.

As to the entirety of the Atlas Waterfront, its unimproved northeast shoulder will be Phase III, with no declared schedule. Of the city and Ignite CDA, says Wharton, “They want to drive some affordability into the project.” Rather than rentals, affordable home ownership, or “attainable housing,” has been a topic of that conversation. Thus far, “It's all been very high end, except for the rentals.” Future programming there might yield 50 to 100 units.

West of that, the ongoing Phase II should wrap next year. Wharton thinks that, following a few more RFPs, all the Atlas Waterfront land sales will be done in 2024, with construction lagging a few years behind that on the remaining parcels. He estimates that, to date, about 80% of the land, including the park, has been sold, developed or is under contract.

Stimson Lumber, of course, is an iconic Northwest company that's based in Oregon but has many deep ties to Seattle. It closed the Atlas operation in 2005, five years after purchasing it. Milling and related operations began circa 1909 as the Atlas Tie Co., making lumber supports for the nation's burgeoning rail network.

The EPA determined six years back, before the land deal, that there was no serious pollution, and brownfields remediation has been done — again with Ignite CDA paying the cost. “There was definitely some soils remediation,” says Wharton. All that was trucked away before the roads and utilities work.