McCall Idaho Headline News

The city of McCall has a chance to acquire a key parcel of land adjacent to the proposed Riverfront Park site, McCall City Council members were told.

The Forest Service will give the city first offer on 4.6 acres along Mission Street across from the McCall Smokejumper Base, McCall District Ranger Shane Jeffries told council members last Thursday night.

The city has until next March to decide if it wants the land. No cost has been set, but an appraisal will be done this fall.

If the city does not commit to purchasing the land by March, the land would be sold to the highest bidder.

"Our choice would be to sell directly to the city," Kathy Nash, special uses program manager for the Payette forest, said. "We need the city's intentions by March. If they aren't able to do it, it would go up for competitive bid."

The Forest Service can either sell the land by direct sale, where the sale of the land would be for the amount the land was appraised, or through a bidding process.

Recently the Payette forest sold five parcels of land in Council and New Meadows for $603,000 through open bidding.

The Payette forest is planning to sell 16 additional acres of land in McCall in 2009. The land houses the Krassel Ranger District offices, a daycare facility, smokejumper housing and other assets across Mission Street from McCall-Donnelly High School.

There is also a property in New Meadows with three houses and four other buildings that would be a part of the sell-off.

The money from the sales would be used to construct a
campus to consolidate the Payette forest's offices, housing and other facilities on the 10 acres on the corner of Mission and Lake streets.

The site now housing McCall District offices and the forest's fire warehouse.

Construction at the site would, begin no earlier than 2010, Nash said.

Consolidating the assets of the Payette forest would mean it could save the $359,000 a year it is now paying to lease its administration building on Lakeside Avenue.

The lease requires a 90-day notice to leave, Boyd Hartwig, spokesperson for Payette forest, said.
McCall still has plans to one day develop 15 to 20 acres of land it owns along the North Fork of the Payette River into Riverfront Park, parks and recreation director Brock Heasley said.

Acquiring the forest service parcel would guarantee the city park would have access from Mission Street to the park, Heasley said.

"The city hopes and expects to be the buyer for that land," he said. "If we don't acquire the land it could leave Riverfront Park landlocked."

The plans call for about $6 million to be spent on the park. Several ideas for the park have been discussed, which include tennis and basketball courts, an amphitheater, water features in the river to create a play wave for kayakers and a greenhouse.