How do you feel about downtown Reno?
I think it’d be a good idea to get a discussion going, if at all possible, here on the site.
I realize blogging is about self-serving viewpoints, a total narcissistic way of unleashing a volley of opinion without much backlash because, after all, it’s a blog on the good ol’ Internet. The good news is, I don’t consider us a blog. Sure, the action may be blog-like, and we may “blog,” about things, but I’m actually happier when I have people discussing things, bickering, even constructively meeting at their convenience about all things Biggest Little.
Issues that seem to cause thought are specific problems about town, such as street resurfacing and paving. I’ve been a long-time critic of RTC, happy to point out success they might have, but always skeptical of their approach to donning a well-maintained method of getting you and I around. Busses, lights, streets… it’s all pretty much up to them.
When a street is resurfaced and paved, one of they most difficult things to deal with are the preexisting services and “ports,” that lie underneath and around a piece of street blacktop. Natural gas lines, sewer access, electrical service access, we know them simply as “manholes,” or “manhole covers.” If you manage to go around Mill Street, Ohm Place, Edison, you’ll see glaring examples of a rushed job of paving versus a proper job. Even Mill Street itself. For example, you drive from about Terminal to Rock Boulevard, and your car is being destroyed by an inch to two-inch deep recessed area for a manhole. Basically, it’s a pothole that will never get fixed. You go beyond Rock Boulevard east on Mill, and you then see the same service ports, all nicely even with poured concrete around them. It seems mystical to me, besides time and cost, of why this was done. Meanwhile, people like myself, are having to replace brakes, shocks, tires and loose bumpers because this job was done, as far as I’m concerned, improperly. Or I can avoid them and just swerve like a maniac. To have one example of a project like this being done half-assed, and one perfectly, almost side-by-side, is classic Reno. Am I simply ignorant? Was there NO other way to ease the pain on our vehicles we’re trying to hold together in a bad economy? There’s probably a reason, it’s probably something we’ll all nod and get some lip-service about, but it most likely won’t be fixed.
Okay, this has nothing to do with downtown, but I feel it’s a great segway into discussions I’ve had recently with people that care about Reno. It seems to be a mindset that extends far beyond simple RTC repaving projects.
I was in a discussion recently with Mike, owner and manager of the fantastic site www.downtownmakeover.com. This site is by far the best, and most informative of the Reno sites, got second place for “Best Local Website,” in the recent RN&R annual “Best of,” votes, and deserves a “Best of,” of its own, if you ask me. Mike does an impeccable job of doing what needs to be done: Telling people in Reno what’s up with their downtown and surrounding areas.
The topic began with his news of the Woolworth’s building, across from City Hall, Bruka Theatre, which as been… Woolworthless…(yes, slap me for that…) for decades. Apparently, according to this article, will slate it for renovation to become office and retail. My attitude, perpetually agnostic about downtown Reno, will be “I’ll celebrate when it is done…AND being used.” I did so with West Street Market, which was, as I said before, “A ‘do,’ not ‘talk’ about it, downtown project.” It almost appeared out of nowhere, like a gentrification project ninja in the night. I continue to believe it is a success story, along with projects like the baseball stadium, that separates them from the triumphant face-plants downtown experiences.
One point that came up in our discussion was the condos that sit downtown, largely imposing, dark, creepily uninhabited and yet polished and pretty. It’s as if some movie set had recently been abandoned. Mike is of the impression, to my understanding, that this isn’t a bad thing for Reno, and eventually, they’ll be worked in as a functioning part of the downtown corridor. I’m really broadly paraphrasing, but I’ll have to do the same thing for myself, as well. My opinion is that we’d almost have been better off with the buildings as closed casinos, which of course, really doesn’t make sense even to me at times, but I have a good reason for saying as such.
Would I rather have an ugly building, closed casino, darkened and unused or a pretty, new building, dark and unused?
I would rather have a casino. Closed. Seems totally counter-productive, especially with disgusting blight on downtown like the King’s Inn, that’s been rotting for almost 30 years in the same location. Fortunately, the legal and ownership issues with places like the King’s Inn are NOT the norm for casinos and other “dead,” buildings downtown. I’d give you the breakdown on the King’s Inn situation, but I don’t have accurate facts or standing with that, just hearsay. I do know it is quite complicated, and is a cancer of downtown.
So why, Daddy Rodeo, do you feel a casino is so much better?
I’m glad you asked. A dead casino says, “This isn’t working.” Meaning, it’s kind of like a head on a stake for the other casinos. Casino’ing in downtown is a tradition that is dying. Don’t tell Park Place, don’t tell the Caranos, but it’s true. Blue-haired old ladies and buses of Asians from the Bay Area have much closer and cheaper places to head than Reno on the reservations in California. Places where they don’t have to deal with meth heads in weekly motels and panhandlers. Economically speaking, it’s also losing battle. The desperate are moreso now, and throwing money into the one-armed bandit or the tables really seems to be a thinking point to even the most ignorant of moneykeepers. Lastly, the Atlantis and Peppermill are doing pretty well for themselves: shockingly, they aren’t even downtown.
Dead casinos have potential. Provided they are structurally sound, they could be anything. The housing boom of Reno proved this, because who would have thought there’d be a need for condos downtown?
…wait, WAS there a need for condos downtown? Can Reno support condo living downtown? At very high-end prices? With retail shops dropping like flies, and no grocery stores nearby?
Besides the housing boom that went flat, I’m wondering the same thing. I don’t have an answer for that.
Las Vegas has gotten away from “party palaces,” and timeshares where you could go, stay for two weeks, do some cocaine, treat the boss to an escort, etc., because they CAN support such things. Well, thankfully, Reno is NOT Las Vegas. It also isn’t Baltimore, Maryland. Or any other place that can probably effectively support people’s want and need to be downtown.
What is OUR downtown? If you ask me, aging casinos and a LOT of super hip bars frequented by ne’er do wells and college kids. Not people buying six and seven-figure type condos. Not people shopping. Not people here for historical knowledge or art appreciation. Those ideas seem dwindling. People have to wonder what kind of lifestyle they’ll have, with the Montage as an example, with street-level condos right across the street from the 210 North bar and 2nd Street Bar, where I see altercations and drunkards four nights a week. Why didn’t they make two stories for… retail and supporting their inhabitants, again, to blend with the nature of our downtown? Are they wondering why Ruth’s Chris
steakhouse, slated to be in view of vomiting karaoke jerks at the 2nd Street Bar pulled out of the south side of the Montage?
I still feel like I haven’t answered why a dead casino is better than a finished, empty condo. Besides the fact it looks pretty from the freeway. Let’s try this:
Potential. A dead casino can be anything. An empty, brand-new, ready-to-move in condo complex can only be just that: an investment waiting to reclaim the cost. As Reno is in transition, fickle about who and what it will grow up to be in the coming decades, it is pressed with the decisions of, “Do I build for the trendy next couple of years, or the decades of the future?” In that indecision is the problem, as I see it. If we build ourselves to be a 21-28 year old college playground, those condos are going to be dark for a long time. However, if we build space to support those condos, for grocery, retail and other outlets that run the other hours of the day besides Friday and Saturday partytime, we might just fill those suckers up. We might even see other retail and small business not only NOT close down, but new ones take their place and then some. See definition “symbiosis.”
Otherwise, a dead casino still has potential. Potential to be a small, outlet Nordstrom. A San Jose-style flea market. A vertical mall. An art gallery. An art complex. A learning center. A museum. A farmer’s market, an office, an experimental green building station subsidized by the government. Something, anything to blend with what Reno is, or could be, rather than “build it and they will come,” attitude. A plan, perhaps? It is a glaring example of developers who have no idea how Reno works. An example of how the City Council haven’t done what they can to help them succeed, to help downtown Reno succeed. I suppose even the existing casinos would have tried, because they know the area, having people wanting a small piece of Las Vegas at a Reno price could have been done. But no, we’re a town of sneering talkers sometimes, arms crossed, stubborn, unwilling, and meanwhile, ignorant outsiders come in, make mistakes, and we deal with the future potential of blight as we have no form or cohesion with our planning. Economy and housing bubbles, etc. be damned.
This is how I tie in projects like the street resurfacing. Why? We’re so eager to get something done and improved here, we’re like a sugered-up child. Excited, inaccurate, naive. We have one success right next to one face-palming “…what were they thinking?” Showing an obvious lack of oversight, or foresight, or SOME sight, because Reno is a town of people and potential, not a patchwork of random ideas. Isn’t it? Will our casinos-turn-condos just be years of hitting the edge of that manhole-pothole because we couldn’t get the job done right, that we then bitch about for 30 years? I hope not.
This is just an opinion, and questions of opinions, of what I see, what I hear, and my gut feelings I get as I ponder, look and watch the days go by in our downtown.
My question about how you feel, reader, about downtown Reno, is what do you think of this, and perhaps the “scene,” that is downtown Reno at this point?
GR
