COEUR d'ALENE - If it sounds familiar, it should.

When North Idaho College trustees approved exploring the possibility of building a sports arena in Coeur d'Alene this week, they dusted off an idea that's been kicked around Coeur d'Alene since at least 2008.

The question trustees said they want answered is whether Coeur d'Alene has the market to support a multi-million dollar arena.

Could the Lake City host prime-time sporting events and big-name concerts like western neighbor Spokane?

It's actually been answered by one consultant already - the same one that did similar studies for the McCarthey Athletic Center at Gonzaga University and the Spokane Arena.

And that answer was yes.

So if NIC does move forward with the idea - which it said it would - it shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, officials said this week.

"There's no sense in going back and having to recreate all that," said Mark Browning, NIC vice president of community relations and marketing, on NIC using data from the completed study. "My suspicion would be there is an awful lot of that (information) we can use."

The college is forming an ad hoc committee to review the likelihood of a potential 5,000-seat facility and report its findings back to the NIC board. After that, officials said, they will wait and see.

"We're trying to be very cautious about it," said Ken Howard, chairman of NIC's board of trustees, on the school rekindling the sports complex issue at a time when the college says it has higher capital priorities, such as building a new professional-technical education facility, a project already being explored by the trustees.

But the first step to looking deeper into the idea of an arena as a long-term strategy "in a logical and cautious way," he said, is just seeing what options are out there.

In 2009, Conventions, Sports and Leisure International had an answer.

The Minnesota company completed a similar study after Lake City Development Corp., the city's urban renewal agency, brought them on board to explore that very question.

Coeur d'Alene has the market to host a 6,000-seat arena, the $75,000 study said.

To support an arena, the study suggested Coeur d'Alene offer a smaller, more intimate venue than what's offered in Spokane. The market would support hosting around 75 events a year at Riverstone with around 4,500 spectators for each event.

The arena could cost between $25 million to $35 million to build, it said.

While operating costs could create an annual loss of about $240,000 - not including capital repairs - the arena could bring around $7 million each year to the region. The study also said an arena could generate around $1 million in taxes per year.

"The arenas themselves are not money makers at all; that's the one thing I wish I could pass on to people," Craig Baltzer, general manager for SMG, the company that runs the Idaho Center in Nampa, told the Press in a 2009 article as the complex was being studied in Coeur d'Alene. "The financial side is shadowed. It's cloaked a little bit. The game we're in is bringing in direct and indirect money into the community while keeping the loss on operating costs to a minimum."

The roughly $20 million Idaho Center was built in 1997 using funding from Nampa's urban renewal agency. It loses around $400,000 every year on operating costs, Baltzer had said, but generates between $20 million and $25 million for Nampa's economy annually.

If a local arena is built, NIC would own and operate the facility, but the college's financial contribution getting it off the ground could be limited.

When the trustees agreed to move forward with their own exploration study Wednesday, they also adopted strict parameters outlining the college's expected involvement in the project, the No. 1 being consideration of the center's operating costs on taxpayers. Revenues from events at the center should cover the facility's ongoing maintenance and operations, the board agreed, and funding for construction of the facility comes from outside sources.

LCDC could be one of those sources.

The urban renewal agency supported the study in 2008 and said this week they've had discussions with NIC and Riverstone developer John Stone about the possibility for the project.

A financial request hasn't been made, but LCDC would be a willing partner in building a sports complex at Riverstone, inside the agency's River District, Tony Berns, LCDC director emailed The Press. Mayor Sandi Bloem also said the city has met with Stone, and would support the project in principal, but nothing concrete had been outlined.

Stone could not be reached for comment this week.

NIC's existing indoor athletic facility, the Christianson Gymnasium, was built in 1949.