Reno and Beyond: Moving Beyond The Fringe

Myrna wrote: “I want to see a map like this for Second, Third, and Fourth Streets from West Street up to Keystone.”

Aren’t Freedman, Tung and Bottomley covering a lot of your mapping request in the latest draft of their trench area reuse study - which DMD summarized here?

http://www.downtownmakeover.com/downtown_reno/3-15-07_East_downtown_Reno_Plans.asp?AID=/20070312/NEWS18/70312007&oaso=news.rgj.com/breakingnews

Much of the land between second and fourth, over the entire length of the trench, is composed of “fringe neighborhoods”. Above ground tracks and at-grade crossings have historically devalued it. But, the city has now put the tracks below ground and taken ownership of quite a few old RR parcels.

Looking closely at the council’s recently announced seven “priority projects” and combining them with what FTB is coming up with in their emerging trench study gives a pretty clear indication of the overall revitalization plan. On the far west, it begins with a unique pedestrian bridge that begins in Idlewild Park, crosses the river to the Second St/Dickerson Road area, with its proposed new public safety center and associated southern buffers to ecourage other redevelopment south of the center, and finally spans the tracks and 4th St to underutilized parcels that FTB hopes will become a new office or retail complex on the north side of 4th.

Then, the study proposes a new fire station east of Keystone, a new community center / city park complex between Vine and Washington and new infill residential from Washington to Arlington. The proposed trench covers start at West, and other proposals appear in DMD’s “east end summary”.

I was particularly interested in this comment from one of the FTB presentation slides (pg 25). “Encourage healthcare and educational institutions to participate in in-fill housing.”

Right now, Silverstar is doing site work on a housing project (Nightingale Manor b/w 2nd and Kuenzli, north of the hospital) to build 164 townhomes for below market purchase by Renown employees making 80K or less per year.

Could the page 25 slide suggest that either St. Marys (a nearby healthcare facility) or “educational institutions” or both, might participate in FTB’s residential in-fill concept (pg 37) that is bordered by Washington, the trench, Arlington, and 2nd?

I don’t know, but the primary owners of the parcels that FTB depicts as transitioning to infill residential are: UNR (an educational institution that owns the Nelson building structures and associated parking), Washoe County School District (an educational institution that owns a mostly vacant parcel), City of Reno (parking lot), Sands Casino (parking and vacant lots), and a well known long-time Reno real estate investor (vacant parcel).

“Maybe” St Mary’s (like Renown further east) would like to offer its own “discounted residential development” to attract new health care professionals to live near and work at its downtown campus. And, “maybe” St. Mary’s would like the existing “educational” and other large property owners to sell them the ground. Or, maybe its all simply a pie-in-the-sky “FTB concept” of how this currently under-utilized area, which is sure to redevelop over time, “might” transition based on Renown’s subsidized housing project to the east.

Now that the trench is complete, revitalization of this and other “fringe areas” WILL occur. It is simply a matter of who will step forward with viable plans and when.

Downtown will look a lot different in 5 or 10 years.

HI Myrna!

Thanks for noticing that post! IT took a while to make that map. Steve is right, a lot of the areas in your district are covered by the train trench master plan, but there are still questionable properties whom, with a facade redo and and a little TLC, could become cute redevelopment projects? And those AREN’T covered by the trench. So Maybe I’ll make a map anyway for ya! For example, the old Horshoe Club facade next to the Nugget on Virginia…..the facade is outdated and doesnt really serve its purpose anymore, and just conceals or hides a few liquor stores and gift stores….that facade should be updated.
The bottom floor over Riverwalk Towers: NO one has gotten back to me on what’s up with converting the bottom floor of this to retail.
Downtown Reno still has one of the highest vacancy rates for commercial buildings in the area….we need to convince people that if they invest in downtown Reno, people WILL come. So maybe a map outlining all the retail opportunities downtown will help!

Grants Landing (#8) seems like it will be surrounded by blight to the south (Lakemill Lodge,etc) and the old residences (and “motel” just east). I vote for Washoe Co.
adopting zoning changes to convert the Lakemill into a user friendly
brothel (which would not only be
something of an offset of that stupid Men’s Club, but also would serve as an employment program for the currently displaced prostitutes operating out of the old Lakemill). I’m sure it could be done, given how often Oscar Goodman has floated the idea of inner city brothels in Las Vegas.

Thinking out of the box here, of course. (And, with tongue in cheek.)

I don’t have any ideas for the old homes, etc. immediately east of the developing Grants Landing townhouses. Probably just let them be. I’m not a supporter of eminent domain grabs on behalf of private developers.

I have volunteered twice to help the Tour de Nez.

Fun times!

Mike Jamieson,

It will be the better part of a year before the Grants Landing models are even completed - and longer to build out and sell out the 130+ unit subdivision.

By that time, I am betting that most of the cruddiest real estate that currently surrounds it will be either upgraded, in the process of being upgraded or bulldozed in preparation for more new development.

When big residential redevelopment projects take place, there are almost always adjacent followup redevelopments that attempt to cash in on the improved neighborhood.

Look at what happened when the Comstock became the Riverwalk and what is only starting to happen on the whole block around the fledgling Montage - not to mention what might happen in conjunction with the Fitzgerald sale. Developers have bought the old Pennys and Woolworths - largely because the Paladio is “updgrading” that neighborhood.

Now, if the city can just get ONE of the potential projects north of Grants Landing underway, it might well spark a bunch of new investment throughout that largely vacant bunch of properties.

That all sounds great, Steve, and
so far that seems to have been the outcome (like in the areas around
the new Riverwalk and Palladio).

But, if they “build it” will folks
come on in and move? I’m at a Somersett home for a few days right now and it seems to be a development area where people have NOT moved in to large sections of it. If these higher quality residences are built downtown, do we have an economic base (providing job opportunities) in our region that would support them?

What’s going to happen to the lower income folks downtown? We have places like the City Center
Apartment complex, sure, but is affordable housing going to be relegated to areas beyond downtown?

Just reread your ideas for area around St. Mary’s. Sounds good and addresses my last question.
(If the idea is adopted.)

Okay, where’s the supermarket in
the area we’re looking at?

At least Steve’s plans for lower
cost housing, around St. Mary’s would place poor folk (usually carless) near Raley’s and Albertson’s.

Same scene in downtown Las Vegas, btw. I used to bug Oscar Goodman about this. Thank god he walked around town alot (by himself).

Mike,

So far, the majority of the downtown redevelopment is centered around boarded up casino/retail buildings and some depressed or abandonded old industrial along with vacant lots and some old surface parking.

Very little existing “inexpensive housing stock” has been removed to make way for new “expensive housing stock.” Instead, the new stock largely adds to the total stock and more residents are choosing to live downtown because additional housing is SLOWLY becoming available.

I don’t know how well the new more expensive stuff will sell - especially when more of it becomes available. But, if it gets built, it will eventually get sold - though not necessarily at a price that will make a decent ROI for the developer.

Reno has a long way to go before it needs to delete significant existing housing stock EXCEPT for stuff that is really awful (unsafe or unsanitary) but sitting in a location that is really valuable (like some of the gray shaded stuff along the river that DMD presented in his “east end” map or Lakemill, etc.).

Right now, it is all about creating residential in-fill. If the city can fix up and fill up abandonded buildings and redevelop long vacant and depressed property along the trench with new and attractive residential, it will then cause new retail merchants to fix up and open up old retail around downtown, and the cycle will eventually revitalize the entire area by adding lots of new investment that has been missing for decades.

It is a REALLY good cycle. Lets hope it continues and grows.