Until the public restrooms planned for North Circle Drive in front of the Mile Hi Plaza are completed, 4th District Supervisor V. Manuel Perez and Riverside County have arranged for restrooms in the Fort to be available temporarily to the public.

At their Sept. 12 board meeting, the supervisors unanimously approved allocating $25,000 for operating and maintaining temporary facilities.

Suzanne Holland, director of the county’s Office of Economic Development, told the board that the permanent restrooms would be ready in about six months.

The staff recommendation to the board said, “The Office of Economic Development is currently engaged in construction of public restroom facilities located in the core commercial tourism district of Idyllwild to serve visitors, guests and local residents; construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. With the need for immediate safe and sanitary restroom services for tourism, the County’s Department of Environmental Health has negotiated temporary use of private facilities for public use during construction.”

The need for temporary restrooms initially rose at a community meeting with Perez. Stephanie Yost, Idyllwild Community Center president, raised the question about the need for public restrooms before the county has constructed a permanent facility.

“We got Environmental Health engaged on this and they helped brainstorm and explore a number of solutions. Assisting the Fort was the idea that stood out as the most preferrable and practical solution,” wrote Darin Schemmer, communications director for Perez, in an email to the Town Crier.

“We know that there are quite a bit of tourists who visit Idyllwild,” said Perez in his press release. “While we have a brand new public restroom coming in, which will be very helpful for the town and comes after many years in the making, we also wanted to see how we could address a short-term situation where there had been no or very limited public restrooms available in the meantime. I appreciate our county team for working on this after our listening session in Idyllwild and making this a win for the community.”

The funding source is a portion of the Funding American Rescue Plan Act — funds that Riverside County received to support economic recovery efforts that were damaged and negatively affected by the COVID pandemic.

“Idyllwild was impacted by COVID due to its shut down and the shuttered venue of tourist activities,” Holland told the board. Even though permanent visitor restrooms are being constructed, she stressed, “… the weather changes and interest in coming to the Hill for tourism and activities … have begun to revive the need for the public restrooms sooner.”

The new restrooms will be in a 210-square-foot facility along North Circle Drive within the Idyllwild Historic Preservation District (IHPD). The county included IHPD’s construction guidelines as part of the specification package. These facilities will be compliant with the Americans with Disability Act.

The total cost for planning, construction and installation was estimated to be about $580,000.