Featured in Sandpoint Magazine (Winter 2025)
| November 9, 2024 4:00 AM
Author: Zach Hagadone
Panhandle Special Needs, Inc. marked the first of a multi-phase relocation and expansion in July 2023, celebrating the grand opening of its thrift store, The Cottage, at 1407 N. Boyer Ave.
It was a big move, figuratively, but not so much literally. PSNI helped more than 200 special needs clients each year to learn the skills to more independently live, work and play at 1424 N. Boyer Ave. since 1975. If those addresses look similar, it’s because they’re across the street from each other.
Though it may have been a short distance to move, it represents a significant step into a long-term future for the nonprofit—and The Cottage is just the first part of what will become an entire complex of purpose-built facilities to ensure PSNI’s continued vitality.
“It is our intention to create a modern campus that will cater to our community’s needs long into the future. This site will not only accommodate our current staff and enrollment of approximately 200 per year, but will also allow for future expansion to meet growing service demands,” PSNI Executive Director Trinity Nicholson, Board President Jim Dubuisson and Board Secretary Gary Deaner wrote in a joint statement.
PSNI leaders added that the new campus will be built to provide “a much better learning environment than our current facility—more space, better lighting, better acoustics, improved bathrooms, etc. Based on forecasts of the growth of Bonner and Boundary counties and the increased needs for disability services we will need up to twice as much space as we have now.”
Moving across Boyer was necessary based on plans to extend Baldy Mountain Road to a new connection at U.S. 95—a route that runs right through the present facility. As a result, the city opted not to renew its lease with the private individual who rented the site to PSNI. That lease won’t expire until 2033, and it’s unclear when the Baldy Mountain Road extension project will come to fruition, but PSNI leaders weren’t going to wait around.
“It is not going to happen soon, but it is going to happen and we will need to be in our new location,” they wrote.
With The Cottage thrift store already relocated, the further phases of the relocation and expansion are in full swing, with a capital campaign to raise the necessary funds.
Already, PSNI has purchased the 2.4 acres on which The Cottage is located, and is doing the preliminary work on preparing the grounds and infrastructure work for the new campus.
“Also, and maybe most importantly, we are preparing the organization and increasing the staff to be capable of raising the kind of money we need to manage the development of the new campus,” Nicholson, Dubuisson and Deaner wrote.
Phase 2 will include construction and relocation of the organization’s core services and administration, while continuing to operate its work program and greenhouse at the old location.
“While it will essentially split us in two for a time, it will provide immediate relief to our life skills training and adult day services, while allowing time to raise money for the next phases,” they wrote.
If all goes to plan, the next phase would be constructing the second campus component, including an expanded Cottage thrift store, a new greenhouse, and relocation of employment services.
The last phase would be customizing the spaces, as well as adding a training kitchen and cafeteria, and completing the landscaping. Capping off the project, PSNI plans to establish an endowment fund as a promise to the community and its donors that the organization is committed to fulfilling its mission for decades to come.
If they had their way, PSNI leaders would like to see the whole project concluded by the end of 2025, but realizing it would be “difficult if not impossible” to accomplish such a heavy lift “in one fell swoop,” they are working to raise funds on a phase-by-phase basis.
To that end, they invite the community to get involved—noting a particular need for skilled individuals to join the board of directors and fundraising committee.
“It goes without saying that we also need donations and corporate sponsors to help us financially,” they wrote.
Though they described it as a “monumental effort,” PSNI leaders Nicholson, Dubuisson and Deaner emphasized the bottom line: “The ability to move all of our services into a fully integrated campus will improve the lives of both our staff and our disabled clients.”
Learn more at www.panhandlespecialneeds.org
