Tag: bodines

The new Bodines Casino yesterday held a grand opening celebration.

Bodines Casino opened today. I wasn't able to go because I had the baby with me all day, but I'm sure I'll be able to check it out one of these days.

Somehow I thought the words would be bigger, that they'd pop more. But in the last week Bodines Casino has put up their two big signs, the one over the front entrance and the marquee out by the street. The one over the door especially seems about two sizes too small, like it should have at least broken the roof line.

There has been a lot happening at the far south border of Carson City. Bodines is well into the final stretch. Here the first sign has gone up on the east wall.

And right next door, they're getting to work on the Carson City Fairgrounds too. Here you can see they've started by building the most important structure of all: the bathroom.

Several footers have also been poured in the background. With this summer coming up, things should really get exciting down there.

It's good to see that there's one casino construction project that's not delayed. They're putting paint on the new Bodine's Casino at the south end of town. Even though it was snowing over the weekend, that didn't stop them. They just put up a tarp and kept going.

There's also some brickwork going in, if you look close. The color palate is tan and deep red, and I think it's going to look great when they're done.

It's been a long time since I've done one of these construction update posts. Probably because I rarely set foot in Carson City during the daylight hours anymore, owing to my stay-at-home dad status with the new baby. But it's winter break now, which means my bleary eyes get to emerge into the sunlight and snap a few pictures.

Bodine's construction, way down south at Clear Creek road, is coming along very nicely. The exterior wall panels are going up, and soon they'll be able to start working on the interior, fitting it out for a spring opening.

Work on the Marriott Courtyard hotel at the Casino Fandango is now entering the final stretch. The exterior work is almost completely finished; just a little rockwork on the ground floor remains. I'm sure interior work has been progressing just as fast, and look for this place to open within a couple of months.

But the real gem of Carson City is turning out to be the St. Charles Hotel. It is undergoing renovation to welcome the Firkin and Fox Pub into the ground floor, and I gotta tell you, it's starting to look Firkin Fantastic. I posted a few construction photos last month, but they've already made so much progress even since then.

A new coat of paint, new signs, new windows, new awnings; everything on the St. Charles has been moved from "old and dated" to "new and fresh". You don't realize how much of a difference can be made with just a little "curb appeal" until you see it in action. The hotel went from a neat old building that was easy to overlook to an absolute showcase for downtown. This is the kind of rejuvenation that many of the other storefronts on Carson Street need; maybe this project will kickstart more renovations throughout downtown.

And F-Day is fast approaching. They've tacked a sign on the door that announces the opening date for the Firkin and Fox Pub; it will be January 7, 2008. That's only about a week and a half from now. The doors will open at 5:00pm

Just for a kicker, here's how the St. Charles looked just two years ago. Actually, it looked like this up until last summer. If they put half as much care into running the restaurant as they did into renovating it, they should have a solid hit on their hands.

Part of the deal to build a new Bodine's Casino at the corner of Carson Street and Clear Creek was for the developer to also donate about a million dollars worth of improvements to the Carson City Fairgrounds right next door. So far, these "improvements" have consisted of razing the old rodeo arena and leveling the ground. And, now, building a brand new parking lot on the site.

I'm sure the new arena will be coming later. But it's just funny that they built the parking lot first. Especially since they've already said they be using this parking lot for overflow parking on occasions where the casino is especially full.

After what seems like spending an age working on the foundation and first floor, construction on Bodine's Casino has finally started to take to the skies. And it's started in a way that you can see all over the south end of town, with this big crane rising above the whole works.

Bodine's is the new casino that's being built on the site of the old Bodine's restaurant, at the corner of Clear Creek and South Carson. It's had its share of problems over the years. First there was an outcry about closing and demolishing the original Bodine's, which was a Carson City favorite. Then the first developer backed out of the project, leading to a delay of nearly half a year before another developer swooped in and resurrected it. And then, just recently, CBS brought suit against the casino over use of the name Bodine, claiming that they owned the rights to that name because of their character Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hillbillies. I'm sure it's only a coincidence that Jethro himself, Max Baer Jr, is building a casino a few hundred yards to the south. It has nothing to do with the lawsuit. At all.

But through all of this, the project is still a go. And it's fairly modest. Just a simple, one-story building on a small lot. No hotel, no room for expansion. Just a neighborhood casino and restaurant that hopes to bring people in with good slots and good food.

The crane has been spending a good part of this last week lifting steel into place for the building's superstructure. If everything goes to plan, the whole thing will be finished and open for business in "Early 2008". Winter's coming fast, though. Better get that roof on!

So I guess I'm not the only one who thought that having a casino named Jethro's just one block from a casino named Bodines might lead to a little confusion. But the article in the Nevada Appeal today is not about Max Baer Jr's problems with the Bodines name, it's about CBS thinking they own the name forever, in perpetuity, for any possible type of business. And the owner of Bodines, Mike Pegram, rightly telling them to go screw.

So it seems that CBS was willing to overlook the fact that there's been a restaurant named Bodines in Carson City for 20 years. They probably didn't even know it existed. But now that the name is being hoisted onto a new casino, being built on the same land, suddenly they have a problem with it. They claim they own the rights to that name because of the Beverly Hillbillies TV show, and any use of it goes against their trademark. Of course this is ludicrous, because Bodines has been there forever and took the name from a business partner, not from TV. The owners of Bodines have responded that they're not changing their name, which I applaud them for.

And I'm sure the only reason this is an issue at all is because of the remarkable coincidence that Max Baer Jr chose the same part of town to build his Jethro's Casino in. Max does get a chance to chime in at the end of the article, saying that it's unfair for them to use that name because it's his name, and they're trying to ride his coattails.

"Since 1962, I have been known as Jethro Bodine," he said. "People come up to me all the time and call me Jethro or call me Bodine. I have been indoctrinated with that name so much so that it stopped my career as an actor. I couldn't get jobs as an actor because people thought I was Jethro Bodine. I don't know how much more familiar you could get with that name."

Yeah, my name's Scott but I'm not going around trying to stop people from making toilet paper. Sometimes you just have to realize there are coincidences in life, and suck it up.

It's been a couple of weeks since I've done a construction update post, so let's take a look around town and see what the builders have been up to.

I've been watching the work at Fifth and Stewart for a couple of months now. In that time they took what used to be a grassy field on the northeast corner of the intersection, plowed it under, and built the foundation for what looked like a pretty large building. I wasn't expecting how large it would be, though, until a couple of weeks ago when they started putting up the wall panels.

I'm thinking this is an expansion to the State Printing Office, which is right next door and which this new building actually touches. This two story beast is really going to change the landscape of this intersection.

Bodine's Casino has been working on the ground floor and parking garage for months and months now, and there's not much visible progress to show. But they did put up these signs at the corner advertising the fact that, yes, the new casino will keep the Bodine's name.

The First Presbyterian Church has been steadily working on their new expansion along Division Street.

The concrete for the floor has been poured, and you can see that it makes a semicircle around a central spot, presumably where the pulpit will be. The walls should start going up soon.

The Carson-Tahoe Quail Park is almost finished framing up its first building, and a second one has been started in the background.

The Marriott Hotel at Casino Fandango is almost done with framing too. Just a bit more to go on the roof, then they'll probably start putting on a layer of stucco.

And finally, construction is starting on the last empty parcel left in the Carson Valley Plaza. This is one of the lots in the middle of the parking lot, right next door to the Pita Pit building they just put up last year.

Already Qdoba Mexican Grill has been announced as one of the tenants, and the rest of the space is probably still unspoken for.