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PONDERAY — The city's front yard just got a little bit closer to reality as community members gathered Saturday for a gate-opening ceremony.

The ceremony celebrated a purchase agreement by the city for the acre-sized site with a hundred feet of lakefront property. It attracted several dozen people from city and Friends of the Pend d'Oreille Bay Trail officials to community members excited by the trail's extension.

The gate, which marked the start of the Wolters family's property, was opened to the cheers and applause of those gathered.

"This truly would not be possible without [the community]," Friends president Dallas Cox told those who braved a 2-mile trek from the Sandpoint side of the trail.

Expansion of the trail began with a vision some 15 years ago, complicated by the mix of private and public property. However, the partnership that developed as a result of a pledge to work toward a shared vision of a community trail along the lake, is something wonderful, Cox said.

"This is a partnership that is so symbolic of the communities and stakeholders," he said. "What we have are three entities, the communities of Sandpoint and Ponderay, the stakeholders, and the citizens. And it just goes to show that when we come together, we can make some really wonderful things happen for everyone. What we have here is a win-win-win, not just a win-win."

While just a hundred yards or so, the site represents so much more than that, Cox said. It represents the Friends' vision for connecting communities.

"You know, all too often people are looking at the bottom line," he added. "But this trail is symbolic of the triple bottom line, namely the people and stakeholders win, the citizens win and the environment wins."

After years of effort and working toward that shared vision, Erik Brubaker, Ponderay’s director of community development and parks, said the trail project was made possible by "wonderful working relationships" with the Hall and Wolters families, who shared in the Friends' vision of a community space that allowed all to access the lake.

"We said we will work with you, we will not use eminent domain to take the property, that we were gonna do this the right way, be patient, work with us and it took a long time," he told the crowd. "But we got here because of those relationships. So please go out and represent."

The site sits between current city of Ponderay waterfront property and “Black Rock,” the site of a former lead smelter. While the city had talked to the Wolters family for years, it wasn't until voters approved a 1-cent local option tax that gave them the mechanism to purchase the site.

With the means to buy the property — and award of an $800,000 Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Multipurpose Grant to clean up the smelter site — city officials said they could finally move forward with their plans.

"Having the next property under contract will allow the city to utilize that $800,000 grant to clean [the Black Rock site] up," Brubaker told the crowd. "So while yes, it's 100 yards, what's happening here is that the big picture is all coming together."

Friends board member Jan Griffitts said members of the Hall family, including the matriarch Hazel Hall and son Dann, would be thrilled to see how far their hopes for a trail along the lake have come.

"I know she's down here and so is Dann," Griffitts said. "Their dream has come true. They wanted to get it all the way down here, not just along their property."

To make the trail happen, and to extend it, took the collaborative effort of many people, agencies and groups, Susan Drumheller, a former Friends board member, said. It is "really gratifying" to see it come together, to see that vision of a community parkland site, trails and more beginning to come to fruition.

As a result, the communities seeing a lot of growth will now have safe, legal access to the lake, she said.

"They're not making any more waterfront; everybody always says that," Drumheller added. "But fortunately, people have come together to preserve 2 miles of waterfront for the public, in the hearts of our population. So that's huge. And this will be here forever."

The cleanup and property purchases are part of Ponderay’s Front Yard Project, which encompasses the Brownfields cleanup and remediation of the shoreline for public recreation, but also the construction of a pedestrian and bike passage under the railroad tracks to provide access to the lake from Ponderay’s neighborhoods and commercial district.

In 2020, the city was awarded a $1.4 million federal BUILD planning grant, which will fund the design and engineering of the underpass, as well as environmental studies, and necessary connecting infrastructure from Highway 200. The city recently awarded the contract to design and engineer the underpass to Welch Comer Engineers of Coeur d’Alene.

To learn more about the Front Yard Project, go online to cityofponderay.org/the-front-yard-project.