Eagle Hardware Picks Site For Proposed Cda Store 95,000-Square-Foot Facility Would Be Chain’s First In Idaho

Eagle Hardware and Garden Inc., a major player in the discount home improvement business, has honed in on a Coeur d’Alene site.

City officials are meeting with Eagle representatives today to discuss the site on the northwest corner of Appleway and Julia Avenue.

“That is the site our engineers are meeting on,” Rich Takata, president of the Renton, Wash.-based company, said Wednesday.

Takata said his company is working with developer Harlan Douglass and that Douglass’ company identified the Appleway and Julia site as a viable one.

Takata said the new Eagle store, aimed at the “smaller market,” would be 95,000 square feet, with a 50,000- to 65,000-square-foot drive-through lumber yard. By comparison, Eagle’s North Division store in Spokane had 127,000 square feet when it opened in 1990.

“We offer the consumer one-stop shopping for home repair,” Takata said.

This would be Eagle’s 31st store and its first in Idaho, which Takata called a “logical extension” of Eagle’s presence in Eastern Washington. The company has two stores in Spokane - at 6902 N. Division and at 5204 E. Sprague in the Spokane Valley.

The opening date, said Takata, depends on the city’s response. “In some cases, it’s taken us six weeks to get permits to build. In others, it’s taken 22 months.”

Though the recent closing of Ernst Home and Nursery was beneficial to Eagle, Takata said the company still would be considering Coeur d’Alene even if Ernst was still around.

“There’s growth in the state,” Takata said. “We would still make a decision at some time to go to Coeur d’Alene.”

, DataTimes