Tag: construction

All summer Hwy 395 has been a work zone between Carson City and the Carson Valley, as NDOT adds a third lane to the highway on the southbound side. The construction zone goes from Jacks Valley Road down to Clear Creek Road, and they've been working for weeks on the shoulder, grading and paving a new roadbed. I guess that part of the project is over, because they've taken down the construction walls and we now have asphalt, new curbs, and guard rails all in place.

I don't think they're quite done yet, they're probably going to put a new layer of pavement on the two lanes that were already there, or at least do something to smooth out the rumble strip between the old lanes and the new. But this is a good sign that the hard part is over, and the project is winding down now.

Last year a new retail building was built on South Carson to house Sportsman's Warehouse. The building was right next door to the Burlington Coat Factory, and actually stood on the footprint of the south half of the old Wal-Mart building, which had been demolished. But as soon as the scaffolding came down on the new building, it was announced that Sportsman's Warehouse was declaring bankruptcy, and would not be opening in Carson City after all. So this brand-new building has been sitting empty ever since, never holding a tenant.

But now it sounds like it will be getting a tenant. I saw this sign on the building last night saying that Big Lots was coming to the space, but it didn't look authentic. It looks like some crude graffiti. It's real, though, as verified by the Nevada Appeal. Big Lots has taken over the space, and will open in October.

Carson Now points this out as part of a large upswing in activity on the south end of town. There is the new Kohl's, which is moving into the old Mervyn's building. Construction on that is coming along very nicely, with the inside being completely transformed. They also mention a possible buyer for the old Carson City Toyota lot, which sits on a prominent corner at Koontz and Carson. There's also the rumor that a Olive Garden might be coming to the Southgate Center, along with JC Penney and Burlington. All good news for South Carson.

Construction on Phase 3 of the Carson City Freeway is well underway. This is kind of Phase 3a, since all they're going to do right now is build the bridges at Koontz and Clearview, and grade parts of the roadbed along Edmonds. But they've been working on all that for a month, and it's coming along nicely.

Koontz and Clearview are going to be just about the only places you can cross this section of the freeway. So they're closing the two streets down, one at a time, and building bridges over the new roadway. I thought Clearview was going first, but it turned out to be Koontz.

Koontz is closed and they've already started digging out the roadway. The freeway here will be below ground in a trench, so the bridge won't go up and over; instead the freeway will pass beneath.

A peek into the tench show the supports for the bridge have already started to be formed. This project is going to be going on for a long time, since they can't start on the Clearview bridge until Koontz is finished and open. They'll probably do Koontz this year and Clearview next year. And maybe by then they'll have the money to start on the rest of the freeway.

This kind of passed by without notice a couple of weeks ago, but I don't often stop along here to take pictures. The two new Michael Hohl auto dealerships are open now, finishing out Carson's "Auto Row".

The Honda and Subaru dealers were the last to move out of the north end of town. Now all the car dealerships in Carson are clustered around this one stretch of South Carson.

The demolition project at the old Carpet Barn building is all done. The building is gone, and they're churning up the dirt underneath.

An anonymous commenter said that this land was bought by Aaron's to build a new store; they already have one in north Carson. I guess we'll have to keep our eyes open and see what happens.

Update: It seems like most of the time I don't know something, it's because I missed an article in there newspaper. Here it is, from June 4th.

NevadaAppeal.com: Carpet Barn building set for demolition

Those bulldozers parked in front of Carpet Barn last week finally paid off. This week they started tearing into the old building, ripping off the front facade and roof of the building.

Interestingly, it looks like they are preserving the outer walls, making this just a major remodel of the space rather than a true tear down and rebuild. It should be interesting to watch this and see if they're saving the walls, or if they'll be coming down later once the debris from the roof is gone.

It will also be interesting to find out what is going in this space, because I'm sure they wouldn't be doing major work like this without a confirmed tenant for the building. Should be fun to watch this summer as they put things back together.

Update: I spoke too soon. Before they went home last night they had finished tearing out the roof, and started knocking down the walls. So it really is a complete demolition. I expect they'll be all finished by the end of Thursday.

The widening progress on Hwy 395 is coming along nicely. This project is adding a third lane on Hwy 395 at the south end of town, where the highway comes downhill into the Eagle Valley. A few years ago they added a third lane on the uphill side, to support the extra traffic both traveling to the Carson Valley and just going to the WalMart and Target along the road there. But the downhill, northbound, side of the road stayed at two lanes. Now that third lane is being added, all the way from Jacks Valley Road down to just after Clear Creek where the highway had previously widened to three lanes.

Construction is always a mess, but they're doing a good job of keeping disruption to a minimum. The two existing lanes have been narrowed through the construction zone (making it horribly unsafe for bicycles, as pointed out on Muscle Powered) but not affecting car traffic all that much. Since all the work to add the extra lane is being done in the shoulder, there hasn't been much in the way of additional lane closures. As far as road work goes, this is about as pain-free as it comes.

Look for work to last all summer, though.

The new sign at Carson Lanes looks like it's all put together now. They're still working on the lighting, though. Much of the sign is lit up but parts of it aren't working yet. The neon on the letters is there, most of it, but you can tell there's more neon outlining the bowling pins and stars that hasn't been wired up. Definitely works to grab your attention from the highway, though, if the rest of the renovations don't catch your eye.

Chain link fence and bulldozers are like porn for me. I just can't get enough. So when I saw these sitting in front of the old Carpet Barn building on south Carson street, it drove me wild. I don't know what they're going to do to the building, but I can't wait to see it!

Looks like road construction season is here. The major project is the widening of Hwy 395 at the south end of town. The northbound lanes, where it comes down the hill from Target to Bodine's, are being expanded to three lanes downhill to match the three lanes going uphill in that spot. This is supposed to go on until October, but hopefully they can keep the disruption to a minimum. They're usually good about working at night on big projects like this.

They're also working on Kingsbury Grade, and on Hwy 395 down by Topaz and Hwy 88 as they install rumble strips down the center line.