The Idaho Department of Lands is expanding its Mica Supervisory Area staff office and moving its administrative and supervisory personnel, who until recently occupied an adjacent building at the department’s Mica compound in northwest Coeur d’Alene.

The $2.4 million project will include a 12,800-square-foot addition, which will nearly double the space at the current staff office building at the department’s Mica complex at 3284 W. Industrial Loop, says Craig Foss, Coeur d’Alene-based forestry and fire division administrator for the department.

The smaller supervisory building, just east of the staff building, will be demolished to make room for the addition, Foss says.

For the duration of the project, the supervisory staff has moved to temporary quarters divided among the current staff building and the fire-cache building, which also is on the Mica compound, just west of the staff building.

When the project is completed next June, the complex will accommodate 44 Department of Lands employees, Foss says.

“We’ve experienced growth in staff the last couple of years,” he says. “That’s caused the need for more space.”

Ginno Construction Co., of Coeur d’Alene, is the contractor on the project, and Architects West Inc., also of Coeur d’Alene, designed it.

Both the supervisory and the staff offices needed more space, but the older supervisory building needed too much updating for an expansion there to be feasible, Foss says.

“When looking at the total needs for our site, it seemed the best solution for everybody,” he says of the staff-building addition.

The Mica-area information technology staff, which currently is located in the fire-cache building, will move to the new space when the addition is completed. Technical services and fiscal personnel will move into the addition from smaller quarters in the staff building, Foss says.

The fire warden, assistant warden, and engine crews will work out of the fire-cache compound.

The Mica Supervisory Area oversees nearly 46,000 acres of state endowment trust lands in portions of Kootenai, Shoshone, and Bonner counties, and provides wildland fire protection on nearly 800,000 acres of land in the area.

Mica personnel also handle permitting and regulatory issues under Idaho’s Lake Protection Act and some state mining laws.