Two long-boarded up downtown motels, which were partly inspiration for the city increasing its muscle to demolish run-down properties and then bill the owner for it, are now in the final hour, as demo permits are in plan review.
The Heart O Town Motel, at 520 North Virginia Street, and the Golden West Motel, at 530 North Virginia Street, are now in plan review to be demolished and the sites cleaned up.
The owner of both properties is Northern Nevada Urban Development LLC.
great news.... terrible eyesores both. How did the owners get away with it so long?
Considerable irony in that the owners call themselves a development company. Seems all they've done is sat on blight and let it rot in the sun.
Midcentury motels are an important part of our culture and history. I toured the interior of these properties on Wednesday and they are in no way so dilapidated that they "need" to be demolished, especially not with city money. They can and should be rehabilitated and adaptively reused. Ideas? Boutique hotels or upscale apartments, incubator space, art galleries...The city's idea that a vacant weed filled lot will look better than two beautiful boarded up red block midcentury motels with exciting architectural details and cool neon signs is ridiculous. What will go here? Something that will just make Reno look like every other generic city? Cool 1950's motels are what people love about Reno. We should be celebrating and protecting them, not erasing them. The owner has some legal and financial issues which I believe is keeping them from selling for what they owe, so I don't think there is any hope in the near future of seeing anything other than a new place for the seagulls to hang out. I would personally rather look at a boarded up motel that has the potential to be rehabilitated. If only we would have waited another 5 years on the Mapes, it would almost certainly have been reopened.
I am so glad to hear that these are coming down, I believe they can be taken by the city and charge the owners. I cannot believe it took this long. I say amen. We need to have pride in our downtown.
Calling them "mid-century" doesn't change the fact that they are run down eyesores. Could they be reused? Sure, but as what? Turning these into boutiques fails miserably 9 times out of 10 and the properties have looked horrible since the 1980's. Just because they were built in the 50's doesn't mean they're important buildings to Reno. It's time to clear the way for something else to go in there and since this is adjacent to the new student housing, it would make sense for this block to be targeted for something similar. I do think that a lot of these old motels could be redone and become very trendy retro places to stay, but the reality is that they are all weekly motels or shut down and both of those options result in sketchy places in the middle of downtown.
I with Bunaglow Hugger on this one. When I first stumbled on this website years ago I suggested that the Reno had a unique marketing angle. Desert to the East, mountains to the wets and a really cool downtown. As I have said all along, it could be the Austin of the West coast. Reno in recent times has had a move to do just that. Look at midtown and along the river. But there is still an attitude in your City Hall to just tear it down. That little town can put in a cenmte slab like no town I have seen before (see Mapes, Harrolds club, Pioneer Hotel etc) If the dollars to rase were offered up at seed money to updgrade, you may end up with some really cool places. And yes, old motesl from the 50’s can be really cool: See:http://www.sanjosehotel.com.
I agreed that the motels CAN be cool, but those (and most others) are NOT maintained as such. They're mostly weekly motels that brings the whole area down that are owned by private parties, not the city. The city is not in the business of building or renovating properties, nor should they be. It's very easy to sit back as an armchair developer and say this should be done or that should be done, but its quite another to put your money on the line and do it. Those that complain about them being torn down are completely free to buy the properties and take on the project themselves. Again, I think an area with several of these motels restored could be very cool.....but several of them boarded up for years in the middle of downtown as people exit the freeway isn't the best foot forward for Reno.
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It's about time, that is one of the first thing people see when exiting Virginia towards downtown. I can't believe how long they've been there.