In an interesting turn of events, I'm hearing Jacobs Entertainment bought the Bonanza Inn after all, for a bid of $3,005,000 at probate court today, overbidding Marmot Properties who had a contract price for the building if there were no other bidders. The contract price was public knowledge prior to today's meeting, so Jacobs was aware of how much to bid to purchase the building. The contract price was for $3,000,000.
It isn't clear why Jacobs did an about face, after stating he stated on RGJ he was backing out of the Bonanza purchase.
Jacobs issued the following statement:
“We will continue to move forward with chartering a new path for Reno’s Neon Line with the creation of high quality housing options as a key component of that vision. To that end, we are very excited to have secured the Bonanza Inn at today’s probate auction to move forward with our plans to deliver approximately fifty units of quality, workforce housing to improve the uninhabitable current structure. Our development team has some new ideas to keep construction costs contained, allowing the project to be economically feasible. We strongly believe that workforce housing is the most appropriate use for the future of this property and look forward to delivering much needed housing for Reno’s working families.
When buildings can be saved and rehabilitated, we do that. But no one in our community should be living in places with black mold, bug and rodent infestations; pretending that these places are acceptable housing is not a solution. We believe that everyone deserves to live with dignity and respect; accepting the status quo of squalid conditions for hundreds of families and individuals is unconscionable.
When properties are beyond saving due to neglect from prior owners, our team supports tenants and works diligently to help them find new housing; we’ve spent hundreds of staff hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to identify new housing options, provide relocation services, pay rental down payments and more.
We will continue to support the Reno Housing Authority and believe that they are ideally positioned to advance the creation of affordable housing in the community.”