COEUR d'ALENE - The city of Coeur d'Alene's Parks Department is expected to request $11.5 million today from Lake City Development Corp. for Phase 1 of the McEuen Field project.

Parks Director Doug Eastwood said if the agency agrees to finance the full amount, it would put the city within $300,000 of funding the entire first phase of the project.

"We have other sources we haven't called upon yet," Eastwood said on closing the $300,000 gap, namely by soliciting donations or sponsors for components of the park, like the playground or splash pad. "I don't see anything else changing on Phase 1 other than what the council does."

If LCDC - which has always been billed as a chief financial supporter for the downtown park project - agrees to the funding request, the proposed project would go before the City Council March 6. It would be up to the City Council to decide whether it should agree to a $1.9 million contract extension with the park's designers, Team McEuen, for construction documents to put Phase 1 out to bid and ready for construction.

Because it's a professional services contract, Idaho code does not require that it go out to bid.

But the extension would retain the design staff that's been working on the park plan for more than a year, officials said.

The contract's cost is included in the roughly $14.2 million Phase 1 estimate. Should LCDC agree to fund $11.5 million, the city would have around $13.9 million of the entire cost secured.

The city's parking lot fund, overlay fund and parks capital improvement fund - which includes money the city earns from park users who reserve park equipment - would pay for the bulk of the rest.

The North Idaho Centennial Trail Foundation could likely fund the $424,000 worth of trail improvements for Phase 1, Eastwood said.

Phase 1 has slimmed down in recent months, as the designers and officials agreed to drop some of the proposals from it. That dropped the price from roughly $17 million to around $14 million.

The updated Phase 1 left off incorporating Second and Third streets, but kept the parking structure beneath Front Avenue. It includes keeping the boat launch, too. It would replace the parking lot with green space, but add a parking lot near City Hall. That parking lot had originally been planned for Phase 2.

How long the boat launch could stay at the field is unclear.

Eastwood said the city is prepared to move forward with Phase 1 while it continues to work separately with the Idaho Transportation Department on securing a possible replacement boat launch site near Silver Beach.

"We probably won't have anything solidified on that until this project is up and running," he said.

Phase 1 could be ready to go out to bid in the fall, according to Eastwood.

Mayor Sandi Bloem, meanwhile, said Tuesday she is committed to compromise and working with the community as the project moves forward, something she discussed at the Jan. 17 City Council meeting.

"We've identified what we think is responsible right now and are planning to move forward with what we think we can afford," she said. "What's moving forward is a plan that includes some of the boat launch."

She too said she didn't know how long the boat launch would stay if the park starts to change.

"We have to remember this is a very long term plan," she said. "I think those are questions that will be answered in the future."

Should the urban renewal agency agree to fund all of the financial request, it would account for nearly all of the $11.7 million an asset management firm said LCDC could spend on projects inside its Lake District when the agency established a $16.7 million line of credit with Washington Trust Bank in 2011 to help fund the McEuen Field redevelopment project.

Tony Berns, LCDC director, said allocating $11.5 million to one project, should the board decide to, wouldn't hamper other potential LCDC initiatives in the Lake District, the urban renewal boundary in which McEuen Field sits. The $16.7 million line of credit "provides adequate resources to meet the anticipated project needs of LCDC's Lake District through 2021," Berns stated in an email to The Press.

The LCDC meeting is at 4 p.m. in the Community Room of the Coeur d'Alene Public Library.