Cedar Street Bridge under new ownership

SANDPOINT — Bridges are typically defined as a means of connection from one place to another — but some bridges connect hearts, communities, businesses and friends. 

Sandpoint’s Cedar Street Bridge has a history of doing both.

While the landmark has recently experienced what some are calling a “dry spell,” a new team is prepared to revive the sense of community that the bridge has contributed to the area in years past. 

“It’s my job to promote collaboration and not competition,” Stacey Mueller, new manager of the bridge, said. 

After feeling called to move to Sandpoint from San Diego, Mueller took on a few different roles in Sandpoint, eventually feeling a pull toward the bridge. Since her move, she has worked with a midwifery in Sandpoint and at the Community Resource EnVision Center.

“I was in charge of gathering all the service providers and bringing them together in our county,” she said. “That went to the wayside when COVID hit … It was through that job that I understand all aspects of what we craft here. [I could understand] what the need is, because you don’t see some of that stuff just coming down First Avenue.”

She met the new owner of the bridge, Joseph Worth, years ago when she lived in California. He now owns a company that builds virtual production studios, Optic 8, and travels from Dallas to Sandpoint often to visit Mueller and Creations owner Shery Meekings, as well as their respective families. 

Now, Meekings, Mueller and Worth are setting out to achieve that vision along with the community’s help.  

“That’s what we’re trying to do — let the community know that we’re wanting to resurrect this ‘third place’ — outside of work and the home,” Mueller said. 

The team wants the Cedar Street Bridge to be a gathering place — a shelter when it rains, a landmark for visitors, and a safe haven for moms looking for a place to take their kids. 

That’s where Creations comes in. Inside the bridge, Meekings provides a play area and art studio next to her shop.

“Creations is one way that we help the community, which is awesome because there are a lot of struggling families here because it’s not easy to live here,” Mueller said. “So it provides a safe place for moms and kids to come, and it’s a free service to the community. It’s really been, I think, one of the torches that lights up and gives hope into our city and has carried through all those owners that have been here prior.”

Meekings’s history with the bridge began in 2009, a period when it was mostly vacant aside from the Cedar Street Bistro, she said. 

“Then we brought the heartbeat of Creations in,” she said. “I worked with the man who owned this building, John Gillham. I sold him some artwork at Schweitzer Mountain, and he invited me to come in and share that same enthusiasm I had when I sold him a piece of artwork in this building, to breathe life into it — and it was in a really hard economy. So that was kind of one of the other resurrections of this building. It took us a long time; it took us until 2017 once it changed ownership again, to actually fill up, to bring that heartbeat — that fruitfulness.”

Over the past 15 years, Meekings has faced different seasons at Cedar Street Bridge as ownership changed hands six times. While the bridge was at full capacity two years ago, 14 vendors have left since. 

Now the bridge is filling up fast, with new potential vendors calling every day.

Throughout her connection with the bridge, Mueller said a theme of rainbows has emerged. Once, after she first moved to Sandpoint and was praying about her future, a double rainbow appeared as she was looking out toward the bridge. That’s when she felt a calling from God to pray for healing and vision in the city. The second instance was while she was in the process of helping create a future for the bridge, still questioning what the next season held. At that point, another striking rainbow appeared. 

“There was something about the rainbow that just spoke to my heart,” she said. “I think it was a sign. This rainbow came out of the middle of nowhere, in the winter time, it wasn’t like it was raining, that’s what made it so spectacular, it wasn’t raining that day.”

In a photo she saw later, she noticed the same rainbow arching across the length of the bridge, landing directly over a room in the bridge where they had recently prayed for the building’s future. 

Mueller compared the bridge to Noah’s Ark, noting that both in architecture and story, the bridge resembles the ark for her. The pair said the whole process of reviving the bridge has highlighted miracle after miracle. 

One miracle they referenced they titled, “the men in black.” While working with Worth to finalize the sale of the bridge, the team was struggling to find flood insurance, necessary to acquire a loan for the purchase. That’s when an anonymous woman stepped in.

“We’re at the eleventh hour,” Mueller said. “It doesn’t look like this deal is going to go through because there is no one that will take flood insurance, and all of a sudden, there was a lady, and we don’t even know who she is. She heard about the story and she works for an insurance company — she works on the hard cases. On her own volition, without talking to Joe or anything, she came out, she took pictures of the bridge, and she submitted the claim.”

Following her efforts, men in suits showed up at the bridge. While taking notes, they started assuring tenants. 

“That’s what they said to the tenants as they walked through, ‘Don’t you guys worry, we’re going to get this deal to happen,’” Meekings said. 

Soon after, the woman called Worth and told him she thought she could help the trio with insurance. 

“We thought they were angels or something,” Meekings said. 

Since his first visit to Sandpoint in 2020, Worth said he has gained a passion for the building through his friendships with Mueller’s and Meekings’ families — and learning about some of the challenges the bridge faced and the integral role it played in the community.

“We just sort of developed a heart for it, never really thinking that we’d have an opportunity to purchase it,” he said.

Through finding out that the structure was for sale, and developing family-like relationships with Mueller and Meekings, he realized that purchasing the bridge while still residing in Dallas might not be impossible. 

“He just loved the bridge, but he also knew how much I was praying into the bridge and the city,” Mueller said. “I think he just caught the vision last time he was here and understood that it was for sale … He really saw how people were on the edge … Honestly, it was a philanthropic purchase.”

Three days after his most recent visit, he revealed that he was thinking about purchasing. He referenced Mueller’s passion for the bridge and the new opportunities her position could provide. 

“It was an amazing opportunity to feel like you could buy something but not feel like you have to carry the whole burden of it being remote — where they already had a vision and we could partner together and really be able to unlock the bigger vision.,” he said. “I love transformational projects. I believe in Sandpoint and I believe in the potential of the bridge. All those factors came together to get me past the risk threshold to buy something 2,000 miles away.”

Worth finalized his purchase three weeks ago. 

What past eras for the bridge have lacked, Meekings said this new owner brings — from creating a new position for Mueller to sharing in the women’s passion for making it a third place. 

“We’ve always had maintenance and management and leasing, we always had to make the numbers,” Meekings said. 

Now they have direction, a new position and motivation. 

“We are 20 creative individuals inside of this building,” Meekings said. “We’re all type A, we’re all super creative, we’re all super passionate. So what do you do with all this creativity and all this life force? How do you get us to work together as one big team, to take this beautiful space and make it shine? And that’s what [Mueller] is doing and that’s what this owner has sewn into.”

Now, they have the chance to “say yes to their guests,” as the two phrased it. Their first step after the purchase was finalized was to throw off the locks to the bathrooms and re-open them to the public. 

“With new ownership comes new vision,” Meekings said. “[Past owners] had a different vision. I don’t know what it was. But whatever people experienced the last couple years — that’s gone. That new, fresh community feeling that everyone has been missing, is back.”

While they recognize the time and effort it may take to rebuild, she said the trio is up for the challenge.  

Now, the team is planning a grand opening for April, including a reopening of Carousel Emporium, which is currently being remodeled. 

In the meantime, they are hoping to find a food vendor and make room for more seating. 

Next comes the spinning wheel of color, Mueller said, which is how she describes what the group is trying to achieve. 

“If you take a wheel and you color it with all these different colors, like a rainbow … and you cause that thing to spin and it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh there are so many colors,’ and it’s just going,” Mueller said. “That’s kind of what we’re trying to create here, having all these wonderful gifts and talents, businesses, the nonprofit  — have all that here so everyone can taste and see all the wonderful things that we have to offer here in Sandpoint. There’s a place and a space for everyone.”

    Stacey Mueller, new manager of the Cedar Street Bridge, saw a rainbow she considered a sign while in the process of helping forge a new path for the building.
  

    Joseph Worth, Stacey Mueller and Shery Meekings, gathered for a recent holiday with family and friends.