Less than three years ago, the possibility of building a community center in Coeur d’Alene could be classified as wishful thinking.

After all, Coeur d’Alene officials had tried twice before to do so, only to be denied at the polls. In fall 2004, when Coeur d’Alene was nominated to represent Idaho in the competition for a Salvation Army Kroc Community Center grant, the Lake City had been without a center for more than 20 years. And Coeur d’Alene was the smallest city in the 13 western states to vie for a grant from the $1.5 billion legacy of McDonald’s restaurant heiress Joan Kroc.

In the next 18 months, civic and political leaders, spearheaded by Mayor Sandi Bloem, impressed Salvation Army representatives with the need for a community center and Coeur d’Alene’s support for one. During that time, they raised about $1.7 million of the $6 million local match needed to land a $64 million Kroc grant. They raised an additional $3 million after learning the city had received the Kroc grant on May 1, 2006, for $4.8 million as of Thursday. That’s the largest fundraising effort in the city’s history.

Fundraising co-chairman Jack Riggs and Salvation Army Major John Chamness are confident that the city will raise the remaining funds necessary to meet the May 31 deadline set by the Salvation Army to break ground this summer. In fact, they are planning a major announcement this morning. Their goal in the remaining weeks of the drive is to rekindle the excitement in the state-of-the-art center about to be built.

A year ago, a standing-room-only crowd drowned out Salvation Army Lt. Col. Harold Brodin before he could finish the statement that Coeur d’Alene had been awarded a Kroc Center grant. The cheering crowd knew the $70 million center would provide pools for swim teams and youngsters, a fitness center and indoor track for families, meeting rooms, basketball courts and a performing arts center among other amenities.

However, that enthusiasm has been hard to sustain in the face of ongoing fundraising efforts over an extended period and attacks from a few antagonists. In the past year, anonymous writers contacted Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to complain about a land swap that transferred ownership of the future 12-acre Kroc site, which once served as a gravel pit, to a religious organization. Others questioned how the city could give the Salvation Army $3 million in reserve funds to prepare the site for construction without demanding that bids be sought for the work. One detractor went as far as accusing the Salvation Army at a City Council meeting on local television of a cover-up involving the contract to fill the gravel pit.

Kroc Center supporters were unfazed by the rear-guard action. They remained focused on the prize.

Now, the money is almost raised to trigger the matching grant, half of which will be used to construct the building and the other half as an endowment to underwrite the cost of operation. The site is almost ready for groundbreaking and construction, which is scheduled to begin in July and last until December 2008. Coeur d’Alene is indebted to the visionaries who made this possible.