Survey of downtown Coeur d'Alene recommends possible National Register district; city, SHPO stress it won’t change property rights

At a public meeting, City of Coeur d'Alene staff, a consultant and State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) officials presented the final reconnaissance survey of the city’s downtown commercial core and outlined options for next steps, including a potential National Register historic district.

Hillary Patterson, the city’s community planning director, told attendees the survey was funded with about $16,000 — roughly $11,000 from the Certified Local Government grant program and a $5,000 city cash match — and stressed the study’s limits: “It does not affect property rights. It does not designate historic property,” she said.

The survey, prepared by consultant Diana Painter and reviewed by SHPO staff, documents the built environment, photographs buildings, and records character-defining features and construction history. “The survey is just to document and better understand the historic landscape of areas across… in this case, we’re doing the commercial downtown core of Coeur d'Alene,” SHPO’s Alexis Matrone said. The data were uploaded to the state database ICRIS and the draft report followed a field survey that began the previous October.

Painter showed maps that code properties as contributing (green) or not contributing (red) to a recommended district, and presented a conceptual boundary that would be subject to community review. “The green is historic and the red is not historic,” Painter said while explaining the mapping.

SHPO staff emphasized the difference between a National Register listing and a local historic district. A National Register district is honorific and, on its own, places no new restrictions on property owners, but it can open eligibility for federal historic tax credits and other incentives. “The National Register listing of downtown as a district would open up property owners… to a financial incentive… to offset some of the costs of doing work on their buildings,” said Jason Tippecanek Fox, SHPO’s National Register coordinator. By contrast, a local district typically involves a design-review process and city-level standards.

Members of the public raised concerns about how the survey labels properties. One participant identified as John said two properties he cares about were marked as not contributing and asked to see the underlying reports. SHPO staff and city representatives offered to pull the ICRIS records, said reconnaissance surveys are intentionally brief, and invited owners to provide additional documentation for re-evaluation.

SHPO repeatedly noted that contributing/not-contributing determinations follow National Park Service criteria and can change if new information or restoration work alters a property’s integrity. Staff encouraged owners to contact the city or SHPO before making changes and said guidance and local examples of design guidelines are available.

Patterson said the survey will inform the city’s ongoing downtown design-guidelines work and the Historic Preservation Commission’s next steps, which will include additional public outreach. Panelists and commission members said any formal decision to pursue a National Register nomination or to create a local historic district would follow further study and public meetings.

Next steps: SHPO and city staff will follow up on specific property inquiries via ICRIS records and continue public outreach; the commission will consider how the survey findings inform local design guidelines and any district formation.