The Girl Scouts Eastern Washington & Northern Idaho Council is erecting a $1.2 million lodge at Camp Four Echoes, on Lake Coeur d'Alene, to replace a 70-year-old structure there.

The new two-story, 11,500-square- foot lodge will have about three times as much floor space as the former one-story lodge, which was razed in September to make room for the project, says Pam Lund, CEO of the Spokane-based council.

Gunder Homes Inc., the Liberty Lake-based contractor on the project, obtained a building permit last month to erect the structure. Eric Hedlund Design LLC, of Coeur d'Alene, designed it.

Lund says the project is scheduled to be completed this spring, in time for summer-camp operations. The council owns Camp Four Echoes and operates it annually from mid-June through August. The 120-acre camp overlooks Lake Coeur d'Alene's Windy Bay, about 21 miles southwest of the city of Coeur d'Alene on the west side of the lake. About 500 girls, ranging in age from 5 to 17, attend summer camp there annually, Lund says.

The new lodge will have a dining room with a seating capacity of 200, a large commercial kitchen and a smaller kitchen both on the main floor, and an activity center on the second floor, Lund says.

The project is being funded through a $1.7 million donation from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Inc. founder and President Ed Schweitzer and his wife, Beatriz, of Pullman, Wash., Lund says. The gift also will support Girl Scout camp programs in science, technology, engineering and math, she says.

The Eastern Washington & Northern Idaho Council includes Girl Scout troops in all of Eastern Washington and in the 10 northernmost counties in Idaho. It has more than 8,000 Scouts and 2,500 adult volunteers, Lund says.