NEWS
City Hall launches downtown design competition
Submissions for Sand Creek waterfront, City Beach concepts will be accepted starting Feb. 21
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff Sandpoint’s downtown design competition is officially on, after City Council members voted unanimously Feb. 15 to invite eligible teams to submit their proposals. The new timeline has the competition registration opening on Tuesday, Feb. 21, culminating with a report to the City Council and completion of the competition on July 19. The contest asks teams of designers to create proposals to address the Sand Creek waterfront and City Beach redevelopment projects, as well as inform the Comprehensive Plan update and future zoning and code changes. A winning team will be identified in a three-stage selection process, which includes multiple submissions, presentations and reviews. Stage 1 submittals will be due Tuesday, March 21. A jury of experts and a panel of technical advisers will make recommendations to the council. Council members had voted unanimously Jan. 18 to hold off on approving the design competition, asking city staff to work on requested changes to the solicita-
tion manual and come back with a revised draft at a later date. Tabling the competition drew the most vocal support from Councilors Justin Dick and Jason Welker, with both insisting that more public involvement needed to be incorporated into the process. “In such a large undertaking, I want to have the community with us at every step we take in this process,” Dick said at the Jan. 18 meeting. On Feb. 15, he said that the changes — though perhaps seemingly insignificant to some — “blows away a lot of the uncertainty we had prior to this.” Working with competition manager Don Stastny — a Portland-based architect and master planner contracted by the city — staff returned before the council Feb. 15 after having been asked to identify more community input opportunities in the process, as well as changing the makeup of the teams by stipulating that they “may include” certain qualifications, rather than requiring them. Staff was also asked to lift the requirement that teams must have completed five similar projects in the past — a hurdle that Welker had argued would all but disqual-
ify any local teams from entering — and identify specific “deliverables” to come out of the contest. The revised competition solicitation includes refined waterfront designs and estimated construction costs, and indicates that a Downtown Waterfront Vision Plan must include at least a summary of goals and vision, urban design context, placemaking and wayfinding, and land use and policy recommendations; as well as an implementation plan, including phasing and priorities. Opportunities for public input now include a “meet your designers” public event, an in-person and virtual public exhibit, and a presentation of design concepts to the jury — all in Stage 2 of the competition. Those opportunities will invite the public to observe and submit written comments that will be shared with the design teams, technical advisers and the jury. Meanwhile, the qualifications section now asks for teams to provide documentation of “up to five projects” completed within the past 10 years — either collectively or as individuals. “The design team should have the professional qualifications and capacity necessary for the su-
perb performance of the required services,” the solicitation manual now states. “It must have a track record of past performance on contracts with public institutions and private industry, including quality of work and compliance with performance schedules. The team should have knowledge of the issues and unique requirements specific to the project.” “I think the teams will be tighter and more specific, and whatever resources they pull into it will basically enhance what the team is,” Stastny said. Staff stated that the initial development toward a full master plan would result from the process “and completion of the full plan master plan would likely be a next step with the competition winner,” followed by full construction design of the waterfront as adopted by the council. According to staff, “We have heard from several firms — local and regional — anticipating the opening of this competition and we do expect we will see a qualified pool of respondents.” The jury members will be HanMei Chiang, project manager of Portland, Ore.-based Hoffman Construction; Katie Egland Cox, execu-
tive director of Kaniksu Land Trust; Herb Fricke, CEO and president of AKANA professional services in Portland; Steve Gill, brownfields analyst with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality; Brian McCormack, principal landscape architect with Lapwai-based McCormack Landscape Architecture; Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad; Robb Talbott of Mattox Farms Productions in Sandpoint; and Karen Whitman, executive director of Portland-based Halprin Landscape Conservancy. Technical advisers are Sandpoint Building Official Christine Kuhlman, Utilities Director Greg Lanning, Parks Planning and Development Director Maeve Nevins-Lavtar, City Planner Amy Tweeten, Art and Historic Preservation Officer Heather Upton, Infrastructure and Development Services Director Amanda Wilson and City Administrator Jennifer Stapleton. Councilor Andy Groat said the revised contest solicitation document gave him “peace of mind” that the competition will deliver “what we need, want and demand.” “There’s a greater level of confidence going forward,” he said, adding, “let’s work toward some solutions.”
Sandpoint City Council schedules workshop on transit plan
Meeting, including the Hwy. 2 ‘Couplet’ concept, will be informational session between city staff and councilors
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff The high-profile U.S. Highway 2 redevelopment concept — often referred to as “the Couplet” — will go before the City Council as an informational workshop Wednesday, March 15, following unanimous approval of the scheduling by councilors at their Feb. 15 meeting. However, while the workshop will take place at the regular meeting time of 5:30 p.m. in City Council chambers (1123 Lake St.) and the public is free to attend, residents will not have an opportunity to testify or participate. “[T]he dialogue will be between staff presenting to council,” said City Administrator Jennifer Stapleton. That was in response to Councilor Jason Welker, who said he
was “confused” at the description of the workshop as “an informational session,” having thought that when the council voted to direct staff to propose such a gathering it would be to collect public input. “When I think of a workshop I think of some public involvement,” he said. Councilor Deb Ruehle also said that she was “confused.” “I thought when we made the decision to table that we were going to come back with a workshop that included public input as to the direction of what you’re calling the ‘East-West Connection’ and focused around the Boyer intersection,” she said. Stapleton later explained that the purpose of the workshop between staff and council is intended to impress upon councilors the implications of revisiting the Couplet
component of the plan, and that it isn’t as easy — or inexpensive — as scrutinizing a few blocks of streets. “These concepts were all developed together. What is happening on one section of roadway is affecting others,” she said, later adding, “I think the workshop will help you understand how all these things are layered on.” For her part, Council President Kate McAlister said the larger plan encompassing the U.S. 2 realignment has already been adopted following extensive outreach. “The public did have input before we voted on the Multimodal Plan and adopted the plan,” she said. The workshop had been triggered by the council when it voted unanimously Feb. 1 to table a proposed amendment to the adopted Multimodal Transportation Master Plan, which envisioned realigning
U.S. 2 to provide a direct connection between Boyer Avenue and Cedar Street via a new intersection east of where Pine Street and Boyer currently meet, then north along the former railroad right of way, and rejoining the highway at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Cedar. The concept presented in the master plan amendment included widening U.S. 2 to a new five-lane signalized intersection replacing the current crossing at Boyer — and cut off access between North and South Boyer avenues. In addition, the city envisioned creating a point of access off U.S. 2 to South Boyer Avenue in order to provide a north-south connection across the highway. However, that route would run directly through the property currently home to Dub’s Drive-in. While the council opted to table
the amendment in favor of gathering more information, it unanimously approved the purchase of the Dub’s property for $380,000, which it will lease back to current owners Marty and Jeralyn Mire, who plan to retire, then sublease the property to new owners who will operate the business at its current location until such time as the city needs to use the property. According to the Couplet design, Pine Street would remain two-way from U.S. 2 to Fifth Avenue, with a signal placed at Pine and Fifth. Northbound traffic would travel on Fifth, which would be converted to one-way. Southbound traffic accessing U.S. 2 would need to exit the intersection at Fifth and Cedar and take a new two-lane, one-way route
< see WORKSHOP, Page 7 >
February 16, 2023 / R / 5