Tag: construction

Construction on the Minden Roundabout is nearing completion. The roundabout itself is finished, as are all the signs. All they have to do is put a final top coat of asphalt and paint new stripes on the road, and the traffic cones should be coming down. Just in time for school to start, just like they promised.

Amazing.

Does this look like a question mark to you too?

This way!!

Tricia Schodowski gave up her crusade to stop them from working at night, but now that they're almost done she should be able to move back into her bedroom and get a good night's sleep once again. And now the grand experiment will begin, to see if roundabouts really are better than traffic signals for the residents of Carson Valley. NDoT is going to make us find out whether we want to or not.

I had an anonymous commenter yesterday who said that the Trader Joe's in Carson City is scheduled to open on September 29th of this year. That's great news, but there's one big piece of the story that's still missing; where is it going to be?

My bet is still on this place:

That's in the Clear Creek Plaza next to the Douglas County Wal*Mart. These buildings are brand new, and right now there are only a few tenants, like Subway and a rent-to-own place. Tons of storefronts are still available, and I could see Trader Joe's snatching up several of them to build their store. Also, the few news reports I've seen on the topic have said it's moving into the Clear Creek Plaza.

Which brings on more confusion. I saw a report on the Channel 2 news out of Reno that mentioned Trader Joe's, but showed video of this building being worked on:

There's a problem here: this is the Carson Valley Plaza. And, there's no way this is going to be done by September 29th. Plus it's way to small.

So that puts us back across the street at Clear Creek. I'm sure that's where it's going, and everytime I drive by I look for signs of activity. But still, even today, the For Lease signs are up in the windows. So I can't be sure until I see workmen move in to start converting the building.

Which should be happening soon, if the store's going to open in 10 weeks. Get hopping, guys!

I've been meaning to take this photo and post it for weeks. Every day I drive by and say, "Gosh, I really need to stop and get that picture. Maybe tomorrow." I've been shirking my duties, is what I've been doing. So here I am to rectify that.

This photo is the site of the old Bodine's restaurant. Demolition took place last month, and now the restaurant, trailer park, outbuildings, and trees are all gone. There's just that one big tree that they spared from the bulldozer, one solitary reminder of the resturant that used to be there.

So long Bodine's. And soon, hello casino.

Shock! Horror! Mystery! When I first saw this last week I couldn't believe it. Afterwards I thought I might be hallucinating so I had to go out and take some photos to prove to the world, to prove to myself, that it was really real. But here it is, here's the photographic evidence.

Last week a crew of workers was out actually working on the Ormsby House. These rare pictures show the aftermath, a completed course of FakeRock™ surrounding the casino. This job was left half-finished last year when the workers packed up and went home one day. It would have literally taken them two more days to finish it, but instead they left it half done for months and months. Then last week they came back to finish the job, and guess how long it took? About two days.

But the funniest part, the part that puts the cherry on top of the entire farce that the Ormsby House has become, is this. This crew was here on special assignment to finish the rockwork around the casino. But guess what? They didn't even finish it!!

Look on the left, in the shadow.

I swear, the Ormsby House these days is nothing more than the punchline to a years-long joke.

Tricia of the Minden Roundabout Blog has given up on her crusade to get Granite Construction to quiet down and let her get some sleep. This was obvious tonight when we drove through at 9:30pm and work was in full effect. It's good to see progress being made, at least. Maybe they will be done by August.

Here are some daytime shots of the work.

The road leading up to the roundabout is being narrowed down to one lane, and decorative planters being put in. Here is the new curb and streetlight.

They are also doing work at the intersection of Hwy 395 and Hwy 88, one block away. Here the turn lane has been removed down to the dirt. Hopefully they're going to put it back, better than ever.

Something new is going up in the Carson Valley Plaza, on one of the parcels that's been empty ever since the shopping center opened three years ago. It looks like it's just going to be more storefronts; I haven't heard of any tenants going in yet.

The Channel 2 news crew from Reno shot some video footage of this building a few days ago, and said this is where the new Trader Joe's is going. Close guys, but this is the Carson Valley Plaza. Clear Creek Plaza is across the street.

This week work started on the new Minden roundabout, at the corner of Hwy 88 and County Road. Right now they haven't started digging into the pavement too much, so it's just a lot of traffic cones everywhere. But soon there's going to have to tear it all up to reroute the lanes, and things are going to get nasty. It's probably going to take a couple of months to finish it, so avoid that intersection if possible this summer. Although I know that's a pretty hard intersection to go around.

This is the roundabout that NDOT shoved down our throats by refusing to put a stoplight at the corner. They say roundabouts cause fewer accidents and less traffic than a signal, and I hope they're right because this particular one is costing about three times as much as a stoplight would.

Work is supposed to be done by August, before school starts. But this is Granite Construction we're talking about, so all bets are off.

Back in March I wrote about the "doomed houses", the houses on Edmonds Street that are standing in the path of the new freeway and will have to be torn down before they can start Phase 2B of the construction. There are four houses all together along Edmonds, and I wondered when they would start tearing them down. Looks like I got my answer, since over the weekend there was an excavator parked in front of 4200 S. Edmonds (which has been boarded up for a long time anyway), and this morning the crews were gathering to begin work.

4200 S. Edmonds

They sure are dragging their feet on this freeway. The first section opened in February, but bids for Phase 2 haven't even gone out yet. So it's good to see some kind of progress being made, even if it's just knocking down one house.

Update 6/27:
The house is gone. They're cleaning up the debris this morning.

Bodine's Restaurant has fallen. They brought in the excavator this morning and completely flattened it. By 9am it was splinters.

The restaurant was the last building left on this corner lot. Now all they have to do is haul away the debris and take down the sign, the flagpole and a few more trees. After that's done they'll have a clean lot, and then they can start cutting the foundation for the new casino.

It's just as much of a shame to see the old trees go as it is the casino, especially this large cottonwood that was right out front. But it does seem like they're leaving a lot of the trees around the perimeter, so the lot won't be completely bare. It will still be fenced in by a berm of trees, isolated from the fairgrounds in its own shady little spot. Buildings can be put together in a year, but it takes decades for trees to grow this big. They'd be wise to keep a few.

The demolition of Bodine's Restaurant continues. Many of the trees in the old mobile home park have fallen. All that's left now is the restaurant building itself.