COEUR d'ALENE - A plan that connects the city's downtown park system to the education corridor, Riverstone and ultimately beyond is just beginning to take shape.

Dubbed the "Four Corners Project," it is a new plan to deal with a variety of properties and stakeholders surrounding the intersection where Northwest Boulevard becomes Sherman Avenue, and Government Way becomes Mullan Avenue.

The city's Parks and Recreation Commission has spent the summer meeting with stakeholders and property owners to determine what their plans are for the area, and now they are ready to pull it all together.

Coeur d'Alene Recreation Director Steve Anthony said a summary of all the stakeholder comments is being assembled and will be reviewed by the commission and the stakeholders at a meeting scheduled for Oct. 14.

If all goes well at that meeting, the commission is likely to make a recommendation to the City Council on how to proceed with the project, Anthony said.

Stakeholders came up with a variety of ideas ranging from a series of dedicated bike and pedestrian trails to potentially moving the Skateboard Park to McEuen Park at some time in the future.

City Councilman Mike Kennedy, who is the council liaison to the commission, said the list of projects is just a list of ideas. Nothing has been decided yet.

"This is purely an advisory process," Kennedy said. "The Parks Commission wanted to take point on gathering the input."

The effort started earlier this year when the commission decide to take a look at all of the projects going on in the area. They met with several groups including North Idaho College, the Fort Grounds Homeowners Association, Kootenai County, Centennial Trail Foundation, Lake City Development Corp., and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Anthony said one of the reasons for the meetings is to eventually develop a master plan for the land owned by the BLM in that area.

At the some point, the city may decide to lease that property from BLM, and a master plan detailing the use of the property would be necessary.

According to minutes of the summer meetings, BLM wants to ensure that the property is used solely for recreational purposes and some parking amenities.

"That is one of the goals," Anthony said. "That property goes from City Park all the way to Riverstone and ends just before the Hampton Inn."

The plan is to eventually expand the four corners planning effort to include the abandon railroad property that stretches to the Mill River area near Huetter, Anthony said.

Kennedy said the commission met with the Museum of North Idaho, the Carousel Foundation, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and the Human Rights Education Institute to discuss the possibility of a multi-use facility that would house them all.

Those groups told the commission they would be open to a shared use facility to keep overhead costs in line.

However the BLM property cannot be used for commercial purposes, so the commission would have to look elsewhere for a location.

"McEuen has a spot reserved for a skate park in the future," Kennedy said. "So maybe we take the skate park to McEuen and use the property for something else like the museum."

According to meeting minutes, Chris Lauri met with the commission to represent the skaters who use the park near Memorial Field. He said the McEuen location would be a much better fit for the park, but funds would have to be raised in order to move it.

The commission is also considering what to do with Memorial Field, Kennedy said.

"There are no plans other than to improve that facility," Kennedy said. "The concept would be no significant changes."

Anthony told the commission earlier this summer that there is a group of softball players who want to protect that facility's historical character, but they would support upgrading the facility.

"We may decide to rebuild the grandstand, but not expand the footprint," Kennedy said.

The minutes say the commission may also look at repositioning the outfield to face Northwest Boulevard instead of the Fort Ground neighborhood to mitigate noise and light impacts on the homeowners there.

Kennedy said nothing will be done in the area until it is brought before the City Council for approval, but he doubts that will happen before the end of the year.

"All this is advisory, so I guess next year a new council could come in and do whatever they want with it," he said.