BoCo Museum faces obstacles to lease renewal

Repairs, potential expansion on hold

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

After six years of applications, the Bonner County Historical Society and Museum has once again petitioned the city of Sandpoint to renew its 40-year lease agreement at Lakeview Park, which the two entities entered into in 1979. The nonprofit first applied for renewal in 2019 under a previous City Hall administration and, after going without an active lease for nearly four years, received an extension in 2023 that will expire later this month.

BCHS and the city began working to create a long-term home for the museum in 1972 and completed construction of the current building in 1980, stipulating in the lease that the organization would pay for and facilitate all future maintenance and improvements on the grounds. In return, the museum would pay $1 per year in rent and “shall have the option to renew this lease for a like period on each successive termination,” according to the 1979 agreement. The museum has made several attempts to fulfill the lease, going so far as to drop the $40 rent check off at City Hall, but has yet to receive a definitive answer on its future at Lakeview Park.

The Sandpoint City Council has not voted to deny the renewal, nor has it accepted it. In May, the city proposed a 30-year lease that would give it the option not to renew the museum’s lease. The item was scheduled to appear on the Sept. 17 City Council meeting agenda; however, Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm removed it at the request of the museum.

Grimm told the Reader on Sept. 10 that the city “does not support an automatic renewal” of the lease because the museum should be “subject to periodic review to ensure it continues to serve the public interest.” He further argued that if the City Council had intended to give the space to the museum in perpetuity, it would have “sold the property for a nominal amount.”

“Circumstances change over decades — community needs evolve, property values shift and priorities must be reassessed,” Grimm told the Reader. “An auto-renewing lease would effectively eliminate the opportunity for the public and their elected representatives to review whether the terms remain fair and appropriate.”

BCHS Board President Tonya Sherman acknowledged those concerns but argued that they do not apply to the nonprofit, which has maintained its original mission to educate and preserve local history throughout its time at Lakeview Park.

“We are a civic organization,” said Sherman. “We’ve been founded by the community, and it directly aligns with what the city does.”

The small, volunteer-run organization stewards more than 400,000 historical objects and operates as the county’s primary archive with only two part-time employees. According to Sherman, it is subject to both state and federal reporting.

“[The 30-year lease] fundamentally breaks the promise of 1979,” said Sherman at the Sept. 6 City Council meeting. “This new lease dismantled the partnership [between BCHS and Sandpoint] and reduced Bonner County Historical Society to a short-term tenant. Thirty years may sound like a very long time, but we’re talking about a historical society. We’re planning for the next 99 years right now.”

Sherman told the Reader that the museum is “open to an amended agreement,” but that a new lease without an automatic renewal securing the museum’s future would discourage people from investing time and money in the organization.

“This is not about questioning the museum’s contributions or value — they are recognized and deeply appreciated,” said Grimm. “Rather, it is about preserving transparency, accountability and flexibility for the community as a whole.”

He later told the Reader that he looks “forward to a mutually agreeable solution to this sticky point over the term of the lease.”

“Per our attorney’s guidance, BCHS will not engage directly with city personnel,” Sherman wrote in a Sept. 14 email sent to the BCHS board and the Reader. “Next steps will proceed counsel-to-counsel, meaning our attorney will work directly with the city’s attorney.”

BCHS continues to operate as usual; but, until it can secure a lease, all repairs and potential improvements to the building and grounds are on hold. According to Sherman, the museum depleted almost all of its reserve funds — approximately $20,000 — in 2024 to repair water and sewer lines on the property and still needs to replace its leaking roof, which will cost an estimated $90,000. The Bonner County board of commissioners allocated an additional $15,000 to BCHS’s fiscal year 2026 budget to help cover costs, and the organization received an additional $1 million from an anonymous donor to replenish its coffers and plan for future projects.

The City Council approved preliminary plans to expand the museum in 2001, when BCHS first realized that its collection was rapidly outgrowing the space. The nonprofit has recently moved forward with the planning process, creating a five-year plan and budget, evaluating all programs and services, and undergoing a collection assessment for preservation to determine how best to store the artifacts and maximize space.

BCHS collaborated with North Root Architecture to develop potential building plans, which it will then present to the community for feedback and suggestions.

“We want to come back to the community and say, ‘Does this work? Is this really what people like?’” Sherman said.

“When people are involved in building something, then they have ownership in it, too. So we need to create ways to do that,” she later added.

The priority is to ensure a safe environment with sufficient space to store the museum’s ever-expanding collection. However, with that task complete, BCHS staff and volunteers have dozens of ideas to make the space more inviting and accessible to the public, including new classrooms and archive programs. Current proposed improvements are broken down into two phases. Phase 1 would add 1,500 square feet of archive and program space and completely renovate the building’s HVAC system to better preserve the collection, costing BCHS an estimated $737,500.

Phase 2 would add another 2,700 square feet and remodel the current interior to maximize storage space and improve the building’s flow so that the museum can remain partially open, even while changing out exhibits. Those improvements would cost approximately $1.6 million. Neither phase would impact the park’s trees, playground or defining features, though BCHS intends to partner with the neighboring Sandpoint Lions Club and Kinnikinnick Native Plant Society to create a landscaped, cohesive campus.

Without a guaranteed lease renewal, BCHS has also begun conducting “feasibility studies” on other properties to which the museum could potentially relocate. The historic granary building (599 Church St., in Sandpoint), which recently came back on the market, is one such possibility, but it would cost BCHS $11 million. Both BCHS Executive Director Hannah Combs and Sherman were quick to say that no one at BCHS wants to leave, and they “don’t think it’s the [city’s] intent to have us not be here.”

“The Bonner County Historical Society belongs in the heart of Sandpoint because it helps residents see themselves as part of something larger, connected to this place and its ongoing story,” Combs at the Sept. 6 council meeting, going on to talk about how the museum affects each generation in Sandpoint.

“This is what the Bonner County Historical Society does every single day. It helps us discover our place in the grand story of this remarkable community,” she added. “This sense of belonging transforms visitors into invested community members and residents into people who don’t just live in Sandpoint, but actively build its future.”