It's all about jobs
Jeff Selle | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 11 months AGO
COEUR d'ALENE - It's been 17 years since the Coeur d'Alene City Council voted to create the Lake City Development Corporation to revitalize blighted areas of the city.
Now some community leaders think it's time to revisit that organization's goals.
On Thursday, the LCDC board of directors will sit down with Coeur d'Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer and the city council to do just that.
"You know LCDC is one of the most important things we do in this city," Widmyer told The Press. "Rather than have a 20-minute presentation on what they have done, I wanted to be able to sit down for an hour or two to discuss their goals and take a look at their mission statement that was written 17 years ago."
Tony Berns, executive director of LCDC, said he welcomes the conversation and looks forward to having an opportunity to explain LCDC's role in the community, which he thinks oftentimes is misunderstood.
"This has been coming up for years," he said. "There is a misunderstanding that most people have. They expect us to go out and create jobs, but that's not our role.
"We set the table. It's the private sector that creates jobs - we are a partner in helping the private sector create jobs."
Berns sat down with The Press last week to explain his agency's role in the community and why LCDC spends its money on the things it does.
LCDC is an urban renewal agency that was created in 1997 to help fund infrastructure improvements that will entice private redevelopment in certain blighted areas of the city, primarily along the waterfront where lumber mills used to operate.
The agency is funded with tax increment financing that is created by the redevelopment itself. When an urban renewal district is formed, all of the property taxes in that district - except for the portion funding schools - is capped for a certain number of years.
The taxing districts that provide services to the residents within that urban renewal district - such as the city, county, fire districts, highway districts, etc. - continue to collect property taxes at the same rate they did before the district was formed. As new development occurs in that district and property tax values increase, the amount of tax revenue generated above the capped rate is collected for LCDC to use for redevelopment.
The portion that goes to LCDC is called the tax increment. That money is used to reimburse developers who take the risk to put in the necessary infrastructure for the redevelopment.
It is that public-private partnership that draws critical attention to the agency. LCDC often attracts criticism for using tax dollars to subsidize privately held affordable housing, to build parking lots and most recently to build parks like McEuen.
"It's easy for our critics to just throw that out there and say we should be doing more for jobs," Berns said. "It's too easy to stand there and chuck rocks from the sidelines until you take the whole thing into consideration."
The strategy
When LCDC was created in 1997, a mission statement was developed and several strategic goals were identified to achieve that mission.
"Our mission is to bring together resource to achieve Coeur d'Alene's vision of a diverse, sustainable community with healthy neighborhoods, a vibrant central city, a strong regional economy, sustainable, superior public open spaces, and quality jobs and housing for all," the mission statement says.
The strategic goals include education, job creation and retention, workforce housing, public space, public parking and to improve the vitality of the midtown and downtown cores.
In spring of each year, the LCDC board sits down with community leaders to discuss those goals before establishing a list of tactical goals to achieve for the upcoming year.
"We do it every April," Berns said. "We invite people to come in and talk with us about what else we could be focused on to add value to our community."
Berns explained that the goals were established when the urban renewal agency was formed, but they realized that the priorities would change as opportunities arose.
"It's a general approach to capture those opportunities when they arose," he explained. "But exactly when that happens depends on many different factors, and one of those is timing."
Take McEuen Park. Berns said community leaders knew they wanted to redevelop that park in 1997, which is one of the primary reasons the Lake District was formed.
"But it took 10 to 12 years to generate enough money to do that project," he said. "So the focus went immediately to Riverstone in 2000. We needed to start generating revenue. You've got to get the money in the till before you can get started."
He said Riverstone - most of which resides in the Lake District - was a job creator, bringing in 79 businesses that generated over 700 permanent jobs. While critics say many of those businesses simply relocated from other areas of the city, Nikole Cummings of Riverstone Holdings LLC said approximately 24 have relocated from areas outside of Coeur d'Alene.
Berns explained that Riverstone jobs critics fail to recognize the importance of business retention in economic development.
"When our critics are stuck on that one point, it's not a fair dialogue," he said. "The fact is, Riverstone created some new jobs and retained some jobs.
"You also have to consider that when local jobs moved down there, they left open spaces for new jobs to come into the market and fill those class B office spaces."
He said Riverstone is a classic example of how the LCDC strategy works.
"The plan doesn't call for X amount of jobs over the tenure," he said. "You just help create those jobs when the opportunity arises."
Overcoming obstacles
"McEuen Park is a job creator - believe it or not," Berns said. "This will generate economic value and economic benefit for the city."
Critics note that the construction jobs at McEuen are only temporary, but Berns said all construction jobs are temporary - and they are still good paying jobs that support our local economy.
"In McEuen alone we spent $15.6 million and Contractors Northwest tells us that 40 percent of that goes to labor," Berns said. "And 80 percent of their workforce is local."
That amounts to nearly $5 million in local wages being pumped back into the local economy, Berns said.
Aside from the quantitative benefits, there are qualitative payoffs as well.
Berns said community leaders and Jobs Plus are working to attract more corporate headquarters to Coeur d'Alene because most of the developable land in the city has been built out.
"The big hits like Ground Force in Post Falls are difficult for Coeur d'Alene to attract because of the resources we have available," he said. "So we have to look at urban redevelopment, or infill, instead of the type of economic development they have in Post Falls."
That's what makes open spaces, parking and affordable housing important goals, he said.
"People will be drawn to McEuen Park," Berns said. "This will help Steve Griffitts (president of Jobs Plus) and his organization attract corporate offices to the urban core.
"Maybe we can attract someone to redevelop the old Elks building on Lakeside."
That's where public parking also plays a role, Berns said. LCDC has been criticized for spend $6 million on a parking facility at McEuen Park, and for its future parking structure plans on the corner of 4th and Lakeside, where the old federal courthouse now sits.
When someone wants to redevelop the old Elks building, they'll have to meet the city's parking requirements, but if LCDC can build 300 public parking spaces nearby, that building becomes more attractive for redevelopment.
"If you take the parking requirement that the city imposes off the table, then that building looks more viable," he said. "That's what we call an obstacle removal."
Workforce housing
When LCDC was formed, Berns said the high-end housing market was just beginning to sweep through Coeur d'Alene. There was a concern that affordable workforce housing would evaporate like it has in other resort cities, forcing service industry and retail workers to relocate to other cities.
"We wanted to make sure that our community had a balance of affordable housing," Berns said. "High end housing came on its own, but when there was an opportunity for affordable housing within the district, we took advantage of that."
He said the other thing most of LCDC's housing critics don't seem to recognize is that the agency will reimburse residential developers for sewer and water infrastructure because often times that new infrastructure opens up even more land for redevelopment.
That just occurred with a small housing development on Seltice Way. LCDC granted a developer a little more than $300,000 to extend the city sewer lines along the north side of Seltice Way to Atlas Road. That will open up 14 more properties to redevelopment.
"When you're talking about jobs, that's a big focus in that part of the city," he said. "That's why we are considering the new district on the old Atlas Mill property."
New district?
There is a 70-acre land parcel where the old Atlas Mill once operated on the Spokane River. The parcel was exempted from LCDC's River District when it was formed in 2003.
The mill was still operating back then and the owners did not want to be annexed into the city or the urban renewal district.
"We just left them out of it," Berns said. "Then two years later the mill closed, so now we want to take another look at that property."
Just last week the LCDC board approved plans to proceed with a feasibility study to determine if an urban renewal district will pencil out in that location.
"This is about the last opportunity we have to do something like that along the river," Berns said. "Jobs are a big part of the discussion out there."
If the city of Coeur d'Alene and the Kootenai County commissioners support the effort, Berns said LCDC could establish a short-term district in that location that is more targeted in nature.
"If we did that I think we would have private equity move in there pretty quickly to get something going," Bern said. "There is a lot of interest in that property right now."
While much work needs to be done to establish a new district and remove other developmental barriers like the railroad corridor that cuts through the middle of the property, Berns said it is likely to happen.
"There has always been interest in that property," he said. "But the money that has been sitting on the sidelines is getting a little less nervous."
Bottom line: Jobs
"Everything we do, we feel plays into the whole value creation equation, which is job creation, which is community benefit," Berns said. "With that said, one of our toughest goals is jobs."
Berns said the LCDC board has always been open to new suggestions on how the agency can generate more job creation, and that hasn't changed.
"We are very open to new ideas," he said. "If someone has an idea or a different tact that we can look at doing, then by all means we are all ears.
"We've been all ears since 1997, and I feel we've been successful in partnering wherever we can."
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