Developer ditches plans to replace Bayview RV park
Jessica Meyers
Staff writer
June 7, 2007
Frank Bixenstein just found out he might be able to keep his view of Lake Pend Oreille and the Coeur d’Alene Mountains – the scene that gives Bayview its name.
A developer has scrapped his plans to replace the 32-slot View of the Bay Mobile Home and RV Park with condominiums. Instead, Hayden developer Bob Holland has put the Bayview property up for sale for $1.6 million.
Last fall, park residents like Bixenstein were handed eviction notices and told they’d have to move by the end of this September.
Now, that may not be necessary, although no one can say what a new owner might choose to do, given the ever-increasing value of lake-view property.
“The sale was not expected,” said Bixenstein who spends almost every weekend in Bayview and feared losing the $14,500 he spent on an early 1970s trailer that is now too old to move to another park. “I feel better if it did sell and somebody was to buy it and leave the trailers there,” he said, already planning to remodel the deck and cover it with a roof.
Holland, who owns Waterford Park Homes LLC, has invested in numerous developments in Bayview and remains a controversial figure in the town located off the southwestern tip of Lake Pend Oreille.
As The Spokesman-Review has previously reported his plan to build a new marina at Bayview was stymied, and Holland was fined, when the Idaho Department of Lands halted the project due to damage caused to a kokanee salmon spawning bed.
Holland declined to be interviewed.
Waterford Marinas manager Tina Arendt, who coordinates Holland’s Bayview properties, denied widespread speculation in the town that the sale of the trailer park has anything to do with financial difficulties.
“We have a lot of projects going on that are higher priority” than redeveloping the trailer park land, she said.
Holland has previously talked of developing the Harborview Marina, formerly the Bayview Marina, with high-rise, multi-unit condominiums. Waterford Park Homes paid just over a million dollars for the Bayview trailer park two years ago, the newspaper previously reported.
Arendt said Holland plans to continue that project when his permit is renewed. He also plans to redevelop the nearby Vista Bay Marina, Arendt said.
And although Holland considered selling the company’s Scenic Motel property in Bayview, it is not on the market.
Hobart Jenkins, chairman of Bayview Chamber of Commerce’s Development Analysis Committee, is among Holland’s critics and among those wondering what the developer plans next.
“I think he is in some degree of financial pressure,” Jenkins said.
He cited 22 violations by Holland’s company in a year and a half including evading zoning rules and failing to report sewage leaks.
“He doesn’t think he can get approval for the grand plans that he had for Bayview within the line of credit that he has,” Jenkins speculated.
It is unclear what will come of the sale of the trailer park. Paul Scott, the Coldwell Banker Realtor handling the property, said the key location has garnered it attention with at least six possible investors.
Even residents are expressing interest. Bixenstein, 60, said there is discussion among tenets of forming a co-op and buying shares. Most residents pay $335 a month for a slot and consider these homes their summer getaway. Bixenstein pays an additional $20 monthly for his lake view. “I would be on the train if they decide to [buy] it,” he said, “but I don’t think everyone would do it or could afford that much.”
Half the park has already left. Retired Air Force Col. Skip Wilcox, 71, is one of the people who moved in anticipation of September’s eviction. “I’m not happy because I had to sign a lease on a new house and it would be difficult to get out of a lease here,” he said.
But he’s not sold on going back, even if he could.
“We don’t know what the new owner will do or who it will be,” Wilcox said. “We just hope Holland sells it to someone not in his hip-pocket.”
