Ponderay plans for more growth

(This is the second article in a two-part series on how new transportation corridors such as the Sand Creek Byway and different approaches to growth could reshape and further connect local communities.)

PONDERAY — For more than 25 years, Ponderay has seen the lion’s share of large-scale retail growth in Bonner County.

It started with the Bonner Mall, which came out of the blocks strong in the mid-1980s, but struggled after the too rapid addition of a second phase and nearly floundered when a large Kmart store opened just north at the intersection of Hwy. 95 and the Kootenai Cutoff Road.

But there were still bigger fish swimming in to gobble up Ponderay’s seemingly endless open space. Wal-Mart built a superstore across the street from the big, red “K” and quickly KO’d the competition. 

Over time, smaller retail slots cropped along the highway up in Ponderay, but the Kmart building — except for short-term, seasonal lease agreements — never again found a permanent tenant. That empty big box store stands as a testament to a not-so-distant school of national retail development built around a “some you win, some you lose” school of business.

Unfortunately, the real losers wind up being the communities left behind when those same national firms close the doors, take the tax loss and move on down the road to try again in a new location.

Whither Growth?

“Businesses aren’t always interested in what a place will look like 40 years down the road when you have failed strip malls and empty Kentucky Fried Chickens,” said Jeremy Grimm, planning director for the City of Sandpoint. “But what most communities have learned over the past 30 years is that this isn’t a direction they want to take.”

For good or ill, Sandpoint has avoided the spotlight where the largest retailers are concerned. The town is both lake-locked and land-locked, limiting the overall amount of space available to accommodate the massive square-footage and parking area needed to build a super store-sized location. Even so, the eminent livability of Sandpoint and surrounding communities continues to spur growth, in population as well as vehicle traffic.

Built during simpler times with far fewer residents and a mere fraction of the freight loads moving through today, the dogleg-infested stretch of Hwy. 95 that jogs through Sandpoint eventually provided the raison d’être behind the decision to route traffic around the downtown core via the soon-to-be-completed Sand Creek Byway.

Which brings us full circle, only a short byway jaunt north, to the future of Ponderay.

Filling In

Exactly one week ago, an Idaho Transportation Department archaeologist was planning a rain-soaked slog along Sand Creek in search of possible historical artifacts that would need to be researched before additional work could be done on Hwy. 95. He would conduct his work well north of the byway project, scanning the section of creek bed that runs through Ponderay city limits.

ITD’s plan to expand the highway once construction of the bypass interchange at the junction of Hwy.95 and Hwy. 200 wraps up is expected to route 14,500 vehicles per day onto the approximately one mile of road that represents the city’s current business district.

Ponderay City Planner Erik Brubaker, meanwhile, senses a make-or-break opportunity for his community. If the ITD can be convinced to think outside of conventional terms, the updated corridor could help transport the city into an easily navigated, pedestrian friendly model of connectedness. All it would take to make that happen would be the right kind of signaling and a few pedestrian islands, according to the planner. Residents and customers could walk easily and safely from here to there, with the highway as a bridge, not a barrier, to businesses on either side.

The option is that Ponderay might be split in two by the highway, its growth options cut off as surely as if someone had cinched down on an asphalt tourniquet. And with lifeblood stanched in one place, growth would naturally flow to other parts of the highway, away from Ponderay.

“I hope we can learn from others’ mistakes, instead of making our own,” Brubaker said, pointing to communities where highways have acted as nothing more than conduits for runaway sprawl. “I want to see Ponderay develop its existing commercial core, rather than allowing them to be leapfrogged.”

Turning Points

Historically, retailers have wanted to be in the front row, which equates to highway frontage. And up to this point, that’s where nearly all of Ponderay’s retail growth has taken place. Left without a new vision, the city might quickly find that all future expansion will look the same. In other words, a sprawl pattern where new discount stores and strip malls crop up in former greenfield areas, bringing with them additional traffic problems as customers attempt to leave and enter the highway.

If the mixture of bravado and brinksmanship it takes to make a left turn from the mall entrance onto Hwy. 95 gives pause now, imagine attempting the same maneuver across multiple lanes from the parking lot of a strip mall made up of the usual suspects such as Borders, Bed Bath & Beyond, T.J. Maxx, Petco, Pier One Imports and Best Buy.

“Commercial pressure will happily push its way out all the way to the Bronx Road,” Brubaker said. “But there’s a lot of room for in-fill development available to us right here in the existing retail core. We need to do everything we can to fill those voids before we go someplace else.

“My direction will be to develop a ‘centers concept’ to define our community growth,” the planner continued. “I want to see us become a series of focus points that you radiate out from, rather than limiting ourselves to linear growth that only spreads right along the highway.”

An ideal mix for in-fill development would be a retail pie sliced into thirds, said the planner, who would like to see even portions of national chains, regional stores and local merchants.

“I want to give this city its downtown and in-fill can help us find that,” Brubaker said. “We have a chance to maximize underutilized land, unused parking lots and frontage roads and assemble those nooks and crannies to create something new. Our timing is good. We’re blessed by the fact that retail is already doing this kind of thing on its own and reconsidering the ‘strip mall and sprawl’ model. A lot of things are coming together to help us do this better.”

Getting Connected

Part of that coming together includes the slow but sure spiraling out of walking paths and bike trails that both Brubaker and Grimm see as a key to community development.

“From a local perspective, those pathways provide options that can reduce a household’s transportation costs,” Grimm said. “If you don’t have to have two cars, two oil changes and two auto insurance policies to get everybody to work, that saves a family money.

“And there’s a sense of connectedness,” he added. “You’re not walled off in your car thinking about going from one intersection to the next. That means communities become more integrated and able to share a lot more.”

Grimm singled out the proposed Pend d’Oreille Bay Trail as a project that would single-handedly change the transportation game.

“Regional planning is very important to where all of our communities are going and that Bay Trail is a tremendous opportunity to tie us all together,” he said.

If giving Ponderay the downtown it never had is high on Brubaker’s agenda, giving residents access to the waterfront they own is even higher. To get that done, though, he will have to work with a transportation entity that’s older, more established and, traditionally, infinitely more powerful than the highway department. He will have to get the ear of the railroad.

“Ponderay owns two miles of lakeshore frontage within its city limits, but we’re cut off from it — the railroad is a barrier,” Brubaker said. “If we had an underpass, we’d have immediate access.”

A local group called Friends of the Pend d’Oreille Bay Trail touts public access to the lake, a city park for Ponderay and increased tourism as a few of the benefits the trail would provide. When that group adds alternative transportation to the list, Brubaker’s ears perk up.

“The Pend d’Oreille Bay Trail is one of the most important things this city could have going for it,” the planner said. “It would become a smoothly flowing corridor that could offer a 10-minute commute from downtown Sandpoint to a big employer like Coldwater Creek — and it would be the most beautiful commute on Earth.”

One Chance

There is a clipped out quote tacked to the wall above Erik Brubaker’s desk. It reads: “We can either be victims of change, or we can plan for it, shape it and emerge stronger from it. The choice is ours.”

Several aspects of Brubaker’s planning vision — largely informed by the above quote — align closely with that of Sandpoint’s, according to Grimm. The desire to create a vibrant and connected business district in the midst of a pedestrian-friendly town, as well as ready access to recreation and alternative transportation, are shared attributes.

Both planners seem to understand that a community requires growth to thrive and that growth mandates having a plan in place to steer its direction. There might be a series of small chances to refine that direction along the way, but, in the big picture, there is only one chance to get it right. Or wrong.

“We all cherish this area and recognize it’s an incredible place,” Grimm said. “You can’t rebuild it once you’ve made certain development decisions.”

“I know there’s a ‘no growth’ contingency out there, but we’re better off thinking ahead,” Brubaker said. “It’s going to take growth to allow these communities to afford the kinds of things we’re talking about.

“In the end, everything follows transportation,” he added, acknowledging that highway projects such as the Sand Creek Bypass will help define the future of Ponderay. “But we’ve got to think beyond automobiles. We have an opportunity to look at other kinds of transportation and define ourselves as the city that offers two miles of public lake access.”