COEUR d'ALENE - The latest addition to the McEuen Park makeover will be a donor wall financed by the Panhandle Parks Foundation, which provides donors an opportunity to permanently etch their name into one of the six granite plaques on the monument.

Kim Stearns, executive director of the Panhandle Parks Foundation, said her nonprofit agency is managing the donor wall project for the city of Coeur d'Alene, along with naming rights for other amenities in McEuen Park and beyond.

"We are the administrative arm for the naming rights in all city parks," Stearns said, adding her foundation struck an agreement with the city last fall to manage the process.

"Naming rights can help raise money for maintenance and land acquisition projects in the city's parks," she said. "Doug Eastwood (former city parks director) came up with the idea and realized that managing naming rights was a huge responsibility and the city didn't have the resources to do it."

She said it makes sense for the foundation to manage the process because Panhandle Parks is a nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.

The foundation donated $25,000 to build the wall, which was designed by Dell Hatch from Welch Comer & Associates and will be built by Contractors Northwest Inc., Stearns said.

It will include six granite panels, each with room enough for 64 lines for names or memorial messages. Each line can have up to 24 characters at a cost of $500 per line. Stearns said the cost is a one-time donation.

"The people or businesses that purchase a line will be getting a lot of exposure for that price," she said, adding there will be a unveiling of the wall sometime in May.

If the plaques sell out, the money generated would be more than $190,000. The money collected by the foundation will be held in a dedicated trust account for the city parks department to use for land acquisition, park development and in some causes infrastructure repairs, she said.

Stearns said the foundation and city are also looking for historic photos to put on the brick pillars of the donor wall. Those will be available for naming rights as well.

"I already have interest in two of those pictures," she said.

Aside from the donor wall, Stearns said there are more than 50 items at McEuen Park alone that are available for naming rights and there has been considerable interest in many of those already.

Three Coeur d'Alene Rotary Clubs pooled together a total of $50,000 to sponsor the Harbor House, and the Kiwanis Club donated $35,000 to sponsor the splash pad.

"We have two more major ones in the works right now, but we can't announce them just yet," Stearns said.

McEuen will have four swinging park benches and one of them has already been spoken for by the family of a prominent local doctor who recently passed away.

"There is a whole list of the amenities that are available on our website," Stearns said.

For more information on how to donate go to www.panhandleparksfoundation.org and click on the "naming rights & memorials" tab, or call Stearns at (208) 651-6271.