Timberline Helicopters to expand in Sandpoint; mayor outlines downtown parking and Northern District projects

Mayor Jeremy Grimm told the Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency Board of Commissioners on March 4, 2025, that the Idaho Economic Advisory Council approved a performance-based investment incentive for Timberline Helicopters to expand operations in Sandpoint.

The approval covers an expansion on roughly a nine-acre parcel north of the fixed-base operator facility off West Mountain View Drive, Grimm said, and the project will create 24 new jobs, including 12 A&P mechanics with salaries that the mayor said can exceed $80,000. Grimm said the company plans a $13,000,000 investment in the site and that the district could see an added taxable valuation of about $12,000,000.

Why it matters: Grimm framed the project as a diversification of Sandpoint’s economy beyond tourism, noting the company’s heavy-lift and aerial firefighting services and the local labor income the expansion is expected to generate.

Grimm also updated the board on several related redevelopment items in the Northern District and downtown. He said the city did not receive a railroad crossing grant for the Great Northern project (he described the total need as about $29 million) and that staff is working to separate stormwater elements from the larger design so smaller components could move forward; Grimm estimated stormwater work could be “a little over a million dollars” and said repackaging that element would leave roughly $6,000,000 available in the district for other projects.

On downtown parking, Grimm said the city provided the council with a preliminary design and that the council had split feedback; he broke the tie vote to move the design forward to final engineering. Grimm said the project will go to the tree committee for review of tree impacts before final engineering and that staff expects to issue the design for bid. He described the likely paid-parking approach as free-flow, license-plate recognition technology rather than gated systems: "There will... it looks like there won't be gates. They will be relatively free flow," Grimm said, and he described kiosks and license-plate billing for incremental time.

Grimm said the city hopes to start construction in spring (he called it a "spring construction" target) and that a proposed parking policy would go to the council for consideration in April; if the council adopts a policy that requires contracting for vendor management and technology, Grimm said implementation could take about a year.

The mayor also said the city will move to phase 3 of downtown revitalization with three master-plan concepts to be presented to council for direction and that the next phase will include a robust public process for design and engineering.

No formal board action was taken on the Timberline announcement or the parking update during the Urban Renewal Agency meeting; the item was presented as an informational update to the board.