The Scoop On Wingfield Towers

Posted by Myrna the Minx on June 20, 2006 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Downtown Makeover Dude spoke with the developer of this new mixed development project a few days ago and sent the minx the juicy details. He also has it up on his site.

Wow this is going to be quite the project! I don’t have any images yet but that should change soon. I had a nice discussion with the developer about the project, and here are some of the details about the project. The tentative name is Wingfield Towers.

The plan is to have two towers, one 40 stories tall, and one 28 stories tall. There will be approx. 40,000 sq ft. retail/commercial space on both Island Ave and Court St. The project will form an L shape between Court and Island Ave. Nearly half the site will be dedicated toward a public plaza to contribute to downtown events. The entire project is around $200,000,000, and approx. $4,000,000 is slated to go towards a public art project that will most likely pay tribute to downtown’s history, possibly the history of the property itself including the ill-fated Wingfield Mansion which burned down a few years back.

Stay tuned for more information…I have a meeting with the developers of this great project next week and will post more information.

The minx would like to point out one thing–she is pretty sure that public art brings with it some pretty nice tax deductions so, although its certainly better for Reno when developers want to include public art in their projects, let’s not forget there is a little something in it for them too. I learned this from reading the portrait of Merv Griffin in Rollingstone. I also learned that Merv is going to put a huge white horse with a blue head in his new development project because of the tax deduction. If I got a tax deduction for including public art in a project, I would build fountains like the ones in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park except I would have the inner fountains run with beer and the outer fountains run with water. That way, you can run in and get a drink and then wash off on your way back out. Cool, huh?

The whole wrap around scheme means major suckage for Park Towers residents–even worse than I originally thought. People on the east side and most of the south side will lose their views entirely.