“De plan, Boss! It’s de plan!” Actor Herve Villechaize’s words (almost) from the opening scenes of the defunct television series Fantasy Island are an appropriate introduction to the link to the Education Corridor Master Plan. The plan and related documents are in the North Idaho College Board of Trustees webpage.
July 14, 2008
1 Comment
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Lets see here….
The plan acknowledges that U of I and Lewis ad Clark have but a small stake in this corridor so it will be primarily an NIC anchored campus. Yet they expect only nominal growth in NIC enrollment as well. All in all they just do not expect or plan for much expansion in education needs. So the term “educational corridor” is a misnomer. Also the railroad spur corridor will also need to be procured at some unknown cost.
The fact that education is not the main focus was fairly well acknowledged at the presentation of the plan. The larger goal of the plan is the retail aspects planned for the revitalized River and Hubbard Roads. These will be two story buildings a la Riverstone with retail and residential mixed use. In other words someone will get to sell the property twice, a lower unit and an upper unit. The key statement is that they feel that the retail success is to be found only if the educational aspects are to be located there. If the college’s do not expand right there then their retail plans also do not work. That “synergy” is requisite and likely more the reason for the overall plan more than any educational needs.
The traffic and parking difficulties are clearly noted. They have done extensive work to bring traffic into, and around the area but have no concrete plans laid out about parking. This, they claim, will be figured out as they go.
It is a cute idea and someone will make a big chunk of change off of it. That someone should pay to make it happen. They should buy the Mill site and donate it to NIC as an endowment (because they care so much about higher education, right?). As part of that endowment they get to develop other sections of the plan for their own profit.
From the standpoint of the Fort Grounds and NIC I think the plan is really bad primarily because of access, transportation and parking. That quiet and quaint part of town will be turned into a retail and high density housing area. Getting into, and out of there will be a challenge. Parking…who knows….but they will need to park way more vehicles than now. Underground garages maybe or a lovely multistory concrete structure will work nicely. They need better access and parking now. Adding all this other junk only worsens that problem.
Comment by Wallypog — July 14, 2008 @ 10:16 am