Tag: carsoncity

I have a new post on the WNHPC Blog about the V&T Shops that used to sit in Carson City.

It takes money to put 'em up, and it takes money to knock 'em down. The price tag for demolishing the Kinkead Building is coming in at $1.6 million, and with the state in financial trouble right now they've decided to save the money and just leave the building up.

The Kinkead Building used to be an office building for state workers, but after it started falling apart (literally, with chunks of concrete falling through the ceiling) they moved everyone out and over to new offices on the east end of town. The Kinkead Building now sits empty and abandoned on Death Row, scheduled for demolition but constantly getting reprieves because nobody wants to fork over the money it will take to remove this stain from the city skyline. So it looks like it will be a slow end for the state's worst building. Maybe we should have had Ty make a detour when he was in town.

The Marriott Courtyard made a big step this week: they put up their sign.

The new addition to the First Presbyterian Church is actually turning into a real building, right before our eyes. A roof and windows and everything.

Now that some of the architectural details are starting to appear, you can see a few parallels to the old building. The tall, curved windows, and the way the gable edges turn in at the bottom. But it still seems to be following the big barn model of church design.

The Timeline History of Carson City is a new little site built by FoopsDesign.com out of Reno. It's still pretty sparse, but then again so are most of my sites. And it's based on a cool DHTML app from MIT, so it's all full of scrolly goodness. But looking at the data file, you can see there's no point scrolling very far. It'll be interesting if they keep up with it, though.

From the Nevada Appeal, April 15, 2004:

The mention of Kelly O'Keefe brings an instant, sort of lop-sided grin and a chuckle to the faces of old-time Carsonites. The headline on a yellowed news clipping on the wall in the Old Globe remembers him as "The One, The Only, The Inimitable Kelly O'Keefe."
...
O'Keefe was the town drunk whom all seemed to love and care for.

Guy Farmer, a member of The Associated Press' Capitol corps of reporters in the early 1960s, remembers him well.

"There's lots of great rumors about Kelly," he said. "Some said he was a jockey, a miner ... what he really was was a regular at the old Old Globe when it was across from the Nugget.

"He was a great town character. One of the jobs the guys in the press corps had in the '60s, when the press room was adjacent to the Assembly Chambers in the Capitol, was to look in and see if Kelly was asleep, passed out, on the rugs.

"He was treated as the lovable town drunk. People looked after him. He just reminds me of old times in Carson. He was a fixture."
...
O'Keefe, who was born James Benedict O'Keefe on Nov. 22, 1898, near Virginia City, died of natural causes in Carson City on Jan. 18, 1973, at the age of 74.

For a long time this mural has been covered with a banner. I saw that it came down a couple of weeks ago, so I had to stop and get a shot of it while it was visible.

You have to see the full size to grab all the detail. The mural is on the Carson City Inn, and advertises their "Lucky 7 Bar".

County rejects Beverly Hillbillies casino derrick. Sometimes you have to wonder about the depths of self-destructiveness that Max Baer Jr. is capable of. After fighting for over ten years and plowing through three counties, he's finally found a spot to build his big dream casino. He's finally got zoning approval from the county to build a casino. He's finally got height variances to build a hotel tower. He has everything he needs to move forward with the project. And now he's fighting over the sign. The sign?

Originally his plan was to build a 200-foot oil derrick out by the highway that would spurt fire 24 hours a day. That soon scaled back to where there was no fire, probably because the price of natural gas keeps rising. Then the county said 200 feet was way too high for a sign, so he dropped it back to 143 feet, the same height as the hotel tower that was approved. The county's response? Still too high.

Jethro's people have said this sign is essential to draw business to the casino. Although I'd think that the massively big hotel-casino would be a draw in itself. I don't think anyone is going to zip right by this huge casino complex plastered on the side of a hill, missing it completely, but then spot the sign at the last second. That's nuts.

In similar sign news, the North Carson Crossing shopping center in Carson City (the Wal*Mart center - where College Parkway meets the freeway) just got their request for a 65-foot sign denied for similar reasons. A 45-foot sign has been approved for the center, but the developers say that won't stick far enough into the air to get attention. Their big concern, I guess, is that they want their sign to rise way above the freeway, instead of just a little bit above. The Board of Supervisors disagreed. And now, in the grand tradition of four-year-olds everywhere, the developers are saying they won't build a sign at all. Well. That will teach them.

And one more tidbit from the Record Courier article, the Gold Town casino project, which has been in the works for 15 freaking years, got approval from the Douglas County Commissioners.

Phase one will include the hotel and 92,000 square feet of casino space, 50,000 square feet of retail outlet shopping, restaurants and a convention facility. Costs are estimated at $125 million for the first phase,

Phase two includes a parking garage, conference center, event center, casino expansion, retail space, spa and wellness center, according to information from county officials.

Gold Town will be located at Hwy 395 and Sunridge Drive, right next to the Silver City RV Park.

Just a few pictures from the snow this morning. First is from Cheryl Mathwig.

6 to 12 inches of the white stuff

The rest are from my house, and my drive in this morning.

Blue skies to the east...

Angry skies to the west.

Doy! Fun!

Yes, I need to take the lights down.

Nasty roads.

The river's not too full. Anyone who was here in '97 knows to keep one eye always on the river.

Coming into Carson. Most of the lights in the south of town were out completely or flashing red.

So we woke up this morning to the largest snowfall we've had in nearly a year. I measured a solid six inches in Carson City and the Carson Valley both. Some are reporting drifts of up to 12 inches in areas. So I'd call this a pretty successful storm. Plus, it's noon and we've had hardly any melting yet, so that's another out-of-the-ordinary occurrence for us. And another wave is supposed to be hitting tonight, bringing in possibly another six inches.

Of course all eyes are on Fernley this morning, where a levee broke along the Truckee-Carson Canal early this morning, sending three to six feet of water into the neighborhoods in southern Fernley. So that could mean that thousands of people might have to weather this next storm in a makeshift high school shelter instead of in their own homes.

The Nevada Appeal has a few flooding pictures here and here and here.

New legislative warehouse will be done January. I wondered what that building was going to be.

Once the warehouse is finished, the Legislative Counsel Bureau will be able to eliminate rentals at Stewart and along Highway 50, moving legal publications, general publications, bill storage and general LCB storage into the new 8,000-square-foot warehouse.

The structure will also hold the paper used by the state Printing Office, which is connected to the new structure.

That's a lotta dead trees in one big building. Remember the paperless office? Neither do I.