Huge Coeur d’Alene apartment project starts construction

Construction went vertical June 18 on the 294-unit Northern at Coeur d’Alene Place apartments, a project that will create one of the largest apartment communities in north Idaho when it’s finished in about two years.

Coeur d’Alene developer Tom Anderl is building 12 24-unit structures plus two 6,000-square-foot commercial structures that will each have three apartments above them and possibly a coffee shop and brew pub at street level.

The first 24-plex should be ready for residents in early November with subsequent buildings rolling out every six weeks after that, Anderl said.

About 30 percent of the units will be one bedroom/one bath. Forty percent  will be two-bed/two bath, and another 30 percent three-bed/two-bath. He said they will be market-rate but he did not have rental rates set.

“Certainly at the upper end,” Anderl said.

The Northern on 17.2 acres is being built next to Lake City High School in north-central Coeur d’Alene at Ramsey Road and Hanley Avenue, which Anderl describes as “Main Street and Main Street for residential growth” in Coeur d’Alene. The Northern is part of the 600-acre Coeur d’Alene housing development.

As in the Treasure Valley, apartment construction is abundant in northern Idaho, with the Northern “certainly among the biggest,” said Ben Widmyer, treasurer of the Idaho Apartment Association and a Coeur d’Alene developer.

“Two factors are in play,” Widmyer said. “Large population growth fuels more apartments. There is the generational thing. Younger generation and retiring people are choosing to rent.”

The Coeur d’Alene population grew 14.7 percent from 2010 to 2017 to reach 50,665, the fourth fastest growth rate among Idaho’s larger cities. Coeur d’Alene’s growth rate trails that of the neighboring Post Falls, where growth is happening at 20 percent, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

Spokane-based Bernardo|Wills Architects is the architect and JCW Construction of Hayden is the general contractor.

Anderl and attorney John Magnuson are also involved in a 400-acre housing development at the southern edge of Rathrum, 14 miles north of Coeur d’Alene. They are in the process of annexing the first 152 acres to Rathdrum to build a yet-undetermined number of single-family homes.

They will develop the land and sell it to homebuilders.

“Eventually, we want to bring all that property into the city of Rathdrum,” Anderl said.

The duo donated 7 acres to the Lakeland School District.

“The first 150 acres will help us with what to do with the balance (of the property),” he said.