SANDPOINT — Planning and Community Development Director Jason Welker proposed spending $100,000 to design and engineer a redesign of City Beach’s parking lot at the Aug. 13 Parks and Rec. Commission meeting.

The money would come out of the Parks’ Capital Improvement Fund and Sandpoint officials had planned those funds as a match for a grant, but the city did not receive it from the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation. The city was denied for the grant due in part to the lack of detailed plans. 

Welker said that nothing will move forward without approval from the Sandpoint City Council and that he plans to present a more detailed plan to them sometime in September. 

"The grantors love to see that we have a bid-ready plan,” Welker said. “We can put that $100,000 that was going to go toward minimal improvements to the larger design and engineering process.” 

The plan won’t be a complete rebuild of the lot, instead it will be focused on redesigning the area with improvements and safety in mind. Welker said that an improvement that he is focused on is adding a drop off point for people and public transportation into the area. 

“We all know that the crawling traffic through that parking lot is a nightmare,” Welker said. “Having a turn around where either parents could drop their kids off or pick their kids up or in the future maybe even a SPOT bus can get in and drop people off. There’s not currently a SPOT bus stop by City Beach, but we would love to see that in the future.”  

The city has two different concepts of the parking lot completed, but Welker said that those are watercolor broad strokes of what it could look like and aren’t detailed enough to hand to a builder.  

"This is not just another concept that we are talking about,” Welker said. “If we want to do something special down there and accommodate SPOT buses, include shade trees, include new signage, include actual stormwater treatment... it’s going to require, either now or in the future, up to $100,000 in engineering.” 

The timing of creating the plan is paramount, as the city is set to receive a substantial amount of parking in-lieu fees from Averill Hospitality for its 56 Bridge St. Hotel development. Welker said depending on when the company submits their permits, the fee revenue will be between $400,000 and $1 million. 

“Our in-lieu fees goes up Oct. 1 from $10,000 to $25,000 per space and they’ve reduced it by 40 spaces,” Welker said. 

With those in-lieu fees, Welker said that the city could put up a much larger match for grants and with plans ready, have nearly all the funding secured for the possible remodel and other improvements at City Beach. 

The City Council approved a $950,000 grant from the IDPR Reactional Vehicle Fund to being plans on a redesign of the City Beach RV park at its Aug. 6 meeting. Welker said that plan is moving forward although he’d like to see these designs happen in conjunction to improve synergy between the projects.