Downtown Reno News

5/11/2008 - DOWNTOWN WALK - RIVER FESTIVAL PICS
- I spent most of the day downtown on Saturday, and from the looks of it, the river festival was again a huge success. Also included in this gallery are update pics for Townhouses at Holcomb Place and the State Street Project. Click here to view the pics.

5/7/2008 - SOME WEST STREET MARKET TENANT SNEAK PEEKS
- A food angel whispered into food extraordinaire Jonathan Wright's ear that a Nick's Greek Deli is among the tenants scheduled for West Street Market downtown. The other new item not mentioned previously is Se7en Teahouse being part of the lineup. That's surprising given they have a location less than a block away. That should play out interestingly. I would have expected Reno restaurants that don't already have a downtown presence would be the ones interested in setting up shop at West Street Market. We'll see when the big lineup is announced May 14! Let's not forget that people overwhelmingly voted for ethnic-specific grocery stalls in my poll.

5/7/2008 - CAC MEETING 5-6-08
Lots of goodies packed into this meeting, including updates on 10 North Virginia, the urban market, the Truckee River Bridge Envisioning Project, Baseball Stadium, Entertainment District, and more. Click here to read.

5/5/2008 - VARIOUS TIDBITS -
1. Powerhouse Gym's stint in Reno seems to be short-lived. When I walked by today nearly half the gym equipment was gone from the building. Either they are doing improvements to the building to meet fire codes, or they bailed on the project.
2. At the Montage, they are beginning to install really large double-wide decking on the south-facing side of the building facing Sierra. A large crane on Sierra Street seems to be helping put these in place. I imagine this area really coming together in the next month.
3. Ballpark Construction - Activity is limited to a small crew doing some dirt work, but Devcon Construction trailers are there on site.
4. 100 North Sierra - Still no interior construction/renovation, however an 'office space for lease' snippet has joined the 'commercial space' for lease. Perhaps plans have changed?
5. If you haven't heard yet, District at Victorian Square has been scrapped in downtown Sparks. Ken at the Urban Blog has great commentary.
6. I heard rumors that the Belvedere project is/was in trouble, however construction was in full swing when I walked by today.
7. Granite Construction will begin the RETRAC cover on June 2. Phase 1 comprises of a concrete lid over 2.8 acres of train trench downtown.

5/5/2008 - DOWNTOWN WALK - Vertical construction begins on Townhomes at Holcomb Place, downtown shots, Montage construction. Click to view pictures.

5/3/2008 - NEVADA DISCOVERY MUSEUM TOUR - This is one of the most exciting projects downtown that isn't residential or retail-based. It's an excellent example of re-use of an existing building and central to the revitalization of south downtown. So here's a tour! If you are unfamiliar with the Nevada Discovery Museum, it's a children's museum being constructed in the former Reno City Hall building located at the corner Center Street and Stewart Street downtown, directly across from the Federal Courthouse. It's hard to tell anything has been done to the building looking from the outside in, but nothing is further from the truth. Click here to take a tour of the demo work completed thus far.

4/27/2008 - WINGFIELD? - I've received some odd emails regarding Wingfield Towers lately. One was from a person who 'would be happy to finance the project', another was from a person nearly scolding me for labeling the project as 'scrapped' on this site, and then from the people directly involved with the project itself, telling me that the project is still alive. Hmmmm, could it be one of the most talked about, anticipated project that emerged from the slew of proposed projects in 2004-2005 might see the light of day after all?

4/22/2008 - JUICY JUICE - So let's talk rumors and speculation! Remember, these are RUMORS so treat them as such.
1. One of my tipsters had a conversation with someone involved with the Masons, and he talked about pending sales of the Masonic buildings.  They plan to sell both buildings - the 1960's era annex housing Bruka as well as the older building to the west of it - and are very close to a sale, but apparently want a sizeable closing delay - til mid 2009 - in order to give them time to make relocation arrangements.
2. Could Legends at Sparks Marina be getting some competition across the pond? They don't affect downtown, but consider these two transactions...On March 18, the Mayor's Cashell Enterprises sold its Alamo Truck Stop / Casino to the entity that owns the TravelCenters of America string of truck stops.  The 42 Acre facility sold for $42.5 million.  It is located on Gregg St in Sparks, south of I-80 between the Sparks and Vista offramps. On March 31, Peppermill Casinos took full ownership of a couple of old motel structures that are part of the its Western Village Casino - located next to the Sparks Marina on the McCarran offramp from I-80.  The transaction was for $10.5 million to buy out a partnership (of which Peppermill was a part) that formerly owned the motel structures.  The motel structures and casino occupy about 9 acres.  The rest of the commercial acreage on that quadrant of the offramp is occupied by a TravelCenters of America truck stop that occupies almost 16 acres. I've heard various rumbles over the past year that Peppermill wanted to renovate and expand its Western Village Casino, which makes a lot of sense given what RED Development is doing with the Legends project on the east side of the Marina.  If they wanted to make changes, they would certainly want to get everything under the Peppermill ownership and get rid of the old partnership ownership of the motels - so that transaction makes a lot of sense. But, why did TravelCenters buy out Cashell, when they already have a truck stop on the other side of the freeway about a mile west of where Alamo is located?  Could Peppermill be in the process of buying their truck stop next to the Marina - perhaps to gain additional real estate for a casino expansion?  And, might TravelCenters be preparing to expand their operation by "trading up" to the much larger 42 acre Cashell operation - which has vacant and unused parts? Looks like a lot of changes "might" happen along that stretch of I-80 over the next few years :-)
3. Property Acquisition - The group that purchased the Woolworths building downtown a while back is snatching up multiple properties in a very strange location of downtown. I don't want to say where exactly, because they still have a few properties left to acquire and I don't want to jinx them. On March 4, the Atherton-based group that have been buying properties in this area bought one more property; an old house - price $230K. In Oct 2007 the Atherton group made three separate purchases and then backed off.  This time, with the ballpark and other stuff commencing, they may be preparing to buy the rest of the privately held properties.
4. To the readers that have been emailing me about RGJ's recent story on downtown, YES I am well aware of the activity going on there, I've been covering it for the past year. However at the request of one of the parties involved, I am not casting any extra attention on the project yet as land acquisition is not complete yet, and the developers don't even know what they are going to build there yet. Can you say 'premature story'? To me, it's important a project of this magnitude has every opportunity to happen, and far outweighs the satisfaction of getting 'the scoop.'

4/20/2008 - NEW PALLADIO RESTAURANT? - This one slipped by me as I am not super into food and check Mr. Wright's blog on a weekly instead of daily basis, but it looks like Starbucks on the bottom floor on the Palladio may finally have a neighbor. Canadian based Firkin & Fox might be moving in. They already have a restaurant in Carson. This has not been confirmed by the Palladio yet, and thus far at least as of last week, 'Available' signs were still on all the retail spaces at the Palladio.

4/19/2008 - WELLS AVENUE WALK - Usually I take my dogs for a walk downtown, however this time I cruised around my own neighborhood, the Wells Avenue area. It's a beautiful neighborhood, and you will be hard pressed in Reno to find a higher concentration of old 1920's and 1930's homes in such a concentrated area. Click here to view the pics!

4/18/2008 - NEW CLUBS OPENING DOWNTOWN TONIGHT - Two new clubs/lounges open downtown tonight. The first is the Red Martini, dubbed as a 'super lounge', located on the 200 block of West Commercial Row across the street from the Montage project on Sierra St., and the second is a dance club (I think) called Club Carnival, located where Vino's Italian Restaurant and Lounge used to be at 240 N Sierra Street just north of 210 North.

4/17/08 - NEW POST OFFICE PLAZA RENDERINGS AND NAME! GIVE YOUR INPUT - City officials, CH2MHILL, and the reno-ites via a few public meetings have narrowed the new post office plaza design to two main concepts. The thought process on this project has come a long way, when comparing the first concepts with these. It's gone from a basic West Street-type plaza river access to 2 final concepts which involve some really cool design elements and landscaping. Many of the new features incorporated were a direct result of public input. I described these in great detail in my CAC Meeting Update. Here are brief descriptions of the two again:
Design 1: Geometric Classic Option - inspired by geometric patterns of the building.
Design 2: River Terrace Option: The distinction of this one than previous one is center portion of the design is more curvilinear, providing more flowing forms to the river.
So, check out the two concepts and tell me which you like better. I prefer the Classic Geometric option as it seems to break up the terraces more. CH2MHill prefers the River Terrace design. Folks in the 4/1 CAC Meeting where it was presented tended to lean toward the Geometric Concept.
ALSO, the post office plaza has yet to be named, so check out my new poll and pick what you like the best :)

Classic Geometric Design (click image to enlarge)


River Terrace Design (click image to enlarge)


Both designs side by side top view (click to enlarge)

4/17/2008 - NEW RENDERINGS AND NAME OF URBAN MARKET - The urban market I think finally has a permanent name; West Street Market. Here's some new renderings with the updated name. A partial-to-complete tenant list should be released any time now.

4/16/2008 - DOWNTOWN WALK - Wow what a walk! All kinds of stuff you must see, including an exposed Montage's lower floors, yoda, the demo of the Nevada Inn, and various shots of downtown. Click here to view.

4/14/2008 - WINDSTORM - Wow what a windstorm! That was nuts. I took a little drive-thru downtown and my Southeast neighborhood. There were quite a few little pockets of damage; I saw some trash dumpsters on Court Street that had smashed into the back of some parked cars, Sierra Street is closed right now due to the Montage mess, poor Windsor Motel's sign didn't make it, saw many newspapers racks, trees, flowers, signs that were damaged. In my neighborhood over by Holcomb, quite a few large branches and trees were uprooted, but thankfully and quite miraculously none of them I saw hit parked cars or homes. I lost my backyard fence, which required some creative emergency preparing using car jumper cables, clamps and some rope (don't ask lol).

4/12/2008 - ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RUMORS -
1. I heard a rumor, which was reinforced in the comments section of Diane Cohn's blog, that a non-gaming hotel might be in the works at the Sierra and Liberty corner where Arterra was to be built.
2. A new yoga studio/hang out place has opened called Vajra Yogic Lounge, located at 100 North Arlington in the heart of downtown Reno. Go check them out! They specialize in some pretty unique kinds of yoga including AcroYoga, Thai Yoga, and massage.
3. I have a few friends who live on the perimeter of the Ryder Homes project proposed for the lot on High St, Willow, Holcomb and Mill. They saw Ryder people mulling about the property the other day, and went over and talked to them. There are mumblings that the homes will stand at least for another 90 days, but after that....plans could be in the works. They still haven't submitted their maps to the Planning Commission yet.

 

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