COEUR d'ALENE - Kootenai Health, partnering with Parkwood Business Properties, is requesting a zone change on six acres of land south of the hospital that could one day house a residency program facility for doctors.

If built, the 30,000- to 50,000-square-foot structure would host six residents in each year of the three-year program, for a total of 18 physicians at a time.

The project is geared to be an economic boost, as well as improve health care in the area, said Chris Meyer, development and asset manager with Parkwood.

"Each physician who stays in a community generates $1.3 million in annual economic impact," Meyer said in an email to The Press. "Each physician's practice also creates an additional six to seven new jobs in the community. Statistically, most physicians practice within 50 miles of where they complete their residency."

A residency is a stage of graduate medical training geared to give in-depth training within a specific branch of medicine.

The goal is to have the first six residents on site by the summer of 2014. The roughly six acres encompasses around four blocks west of Lincoln Way, along Emma Avenue including Nora Street, south of Ironwood Drive and the hospital. A cost of construction hasn't been estimated yet. Before any building can begin, the Coeur d'Alene City Council must approve a zone change, from its current Residential 12 zoning to Commercial Light 17, which would allow the facility.

The facility and associated parking would be constructed as an expansion of the adjacent Interlake Medical Building, according to city planning staff reports.

The city's planning commission approved the zone change request. It will go before the council at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Community Room of the Coeur d'Alene Public Library.

The applicants own much of the property, while the remaining affected homeowners in the neighborhood have agreed to the change, the city's planning department said.

Scott Hough, homeowner on Melrose Street, said he'd welcome the new neighbors should the plan go through. The applicants, who met regularly with the homeowners, offered to purchase his home at 10 percent above market value, but he opted to stay put through the proposed change.

"They've been good," he said of his medical neighbors. "They stated they wouldn't punch a road through and that's what the neighbors who are staying were concerned about."

"It should be nice," he said of the proposed change.

Meyer pointed to a recent assessment by Southwind Associates of the region that identified a need for as many as 72 primary care physicians by 2015. Idaho ranks 49th in the nation for physicians per 1,000 people.

"The new Kootenai family medicine residency program will help add new primary care physicians to North Idaho," Meyer said in the email.

The property is adjacent to both residential and commercial zoning, and a change would conform to the city's comprehensive planning for the area, according to city staff reports.

Founded in 1975, Parkwood Business Properties is a commercial real estate development and property management firm. Its principal partners are Stephen Meyer and Charlie Nipp, a past president of Kootenai Medical Center Foundation.

The company has a 25-year partnership history with Kootenai Health, beginning with the development of the Kootenai Cancer Center in 1986. The proposed expansion has been discussed for a few years, Meyer said.

Kootenai Health named Richard McLandress, MD, program director of a family medicine residency program in July.

Awareness increasing because of high suicide rate in Kootenai County