Tag: douglas

Letter to the Editor, Record-Courier:

As the cable barrier between the north and southbound lanes of Highway 395 inches ever so close to completion, I can't help but reflect on my letter to the editor shortly after the loss of Nicole Snyder. Her tragic death due to a crossover accident only a few miles from home, triggered something in my soul, as I felt her parent's pain. This was the second crossover accident that caused loss of life on this dangerous stretch of highway, made even more dangerous by the Nevada Department of Transportation's lack of concern for a problem so simple to fix, or so it seemed to me.

My letter to the editor of this paper, as well as e-mails to the state directly, appeared to go unanswered. But then I started to see some changes. Slow to come, but changes none the less. It took another loss of life at the intersection of Highway 395 and Stephanie, this time due to the combination of a lack of a traffic light and impatience. The state responded to the cries of those close to the victim, and a light was finally placed at this dangerous intersection. Shortly thereafter, comparatively at least, work began on the median cable barrier.

At this writing, the barrier work has reached the location of Nicole Snyder's accident. I think of her often as I pass this location, noticing the makeshift memorial placed by friends and family who refuse to forget her. Although I didn't know her, I can't help but feel that I did. She was one of our own ... one of my own. So, I call on this county's decision makers once again. Help her friends and family remember her officially by placing a sign in the median along side the section of the barrier that would have saved her life. Might I suggest "The Nicole Snyder Memorial Barrier"?

Thank you, Nicole. Rest in peace.

Jim DeZerga

Why not, we already have A Light For Bridget.

The new Qdoba Restaurant up in Carson Valley Plaza opened Tuesday, and we went down to brave the rush for their first dinner. And there was quite a crowd there. It seemed a lot of people had heard about the opening and wanted to try out the new place. But the staff was ready for the crush of people, and even though the line was long, service was nice and speedy.

They sure didn't waste anytime building this restaurant. Back in July it was nothing more than a dirt lot. Now, four months later, it's open for business. That's what I call Getting The Job Done. We need to get these people working on the Ormsby House.

In July

The Wild Goose Villa that I mentioned last week cleared a big hurdle this week, when it was approved by the Minden Town Board.

They're hoping to break ground in the spring.

I came across these concept drawings for a proposed development in Minden, and I thought they were too good not to share. This is exactly the kind of mixed-use development we've been talking about lately, the kind I think should be built in downtown Carson City. Except this one is being built in pastureland on the outskirts of Minden.

The Wild Goose Villa is slated to go in at the northwest corner of Ironwood and Lucerne Streets in Minden, cater-corner across from the Sierra Nevada Trading Company. Click here to see the exact location on a map.

At first glance, this looks like any other high-end high-density residential project. The building holds about fifty condos, a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, with an on-site gym, covered parking, interior hallways, balconies in each unit, and other amenities.

But when you look close at the plans, you see that strip of glass windows along the ground floor. All of that, facing the parking lot, is retail space available for lease. These could be specialty shops set up to serve the residents of the building or, more interestingly, they could be shops owned by the residents. This would allow owners and employees to literally walk down the stairs to get to work, providing a little bit of urban living in what is still predominately a rural town. It's a bold plan, made even more bold by the out-of-the-way location, but it would be exciting to see it come together and actually get built. Sort of like an experiment to see if this sort of thing can fly around here.

There are a few other details to the project. The whole building is shaped like a horseshoe, like a hexagon cut in half. The retail space would only take up about half of the square footage of the ground floor. The rest of it, behind the stores, would be a covered parking garage for residents. You can see a car disappearing into the garage on the right-hand side of the drawing. The shops at each end of the building, flanking the strip mall, would be set aside as larger spaces for restaurants. And phase two would involve building a detached three-story office building in the parking lot, roughly where the imaginary photographer is standing. This would provide an incentive for professionals to buy into the development, if they could live this close to their office.

I'm excited to see this project get off the ground, and see how well it's received. But I think it's still in the early stage of development, and not a sure thing to get built. We'll be keeping our eyes on that corner.

Back in July you may remember that it was announced that Highway 395 through the Carson Valley would be getting a cable barrier installed down the median, to make the roadway safer and protect against crossover accidents on the highway. Well, last month they finally started installing the barrier, starting at the north and heading south. And now large stretches of the barrier are finished near Indian Hills.

My first impression of the barrier is that it's unflinchingly ugly. I guess it's functional, and that's all it needs to be, but it also looks cheap. I surmised over the summer that the only reason they decided on a cable barrier was because of the low cost, and it looks like they settled for the cheapest choice in an already cheap field. The cables look fine, but those posts look like they'd buckle in a stiff Washoe Zephyr, much less in a high-speed collision. The posts are even visibly crooked in many places, like they didn't even take care to stand them fully upright.

I guess it doesn't matter, because in an installation like this it looks like all the strength and stopping power rests in the cables, The posts, then, are there for no reason other than to guide the cables where they need to go. So I have no doubts the barrier will do its job, and if your car crashes into it, you'll stop without ending up in the oncoming lanes. But it looks like sloppy workmanship, and perception is all about the way the thing looks, not the way it functions. Plus, I have to look at this barrier every day, and I was hoping for something a little bit more attractive.

Oh well. The sacrifices we make for safety, I guess.

Jethro gets another thumbs up. The Douglas County Board of Commissioners approved the zoning changes needed to build Jethro's Casino across the street from the Clear Creek Plaza. But this still isn't final approval, because his huge oil derrick and electric sign won't be decided on until December 6th. I think those parts of the project are completely unnecessary and by all rights should be denied. It's not like his 12-story hotel is going to be invisible and nobody will find the place if the sign isn't big enough.

The Record Courier has published their Reader's Choice list of the Best of Carson Valley. Carson Valley Days took away the prize as the Best Event, Raley's was the Best Grocery Store, and Francisco's took away Best Mexican Restaurant. The one glaring omission is Around Carson as Best Website, but I'm guessing they left it out because it was such a landslide win, printing it would have been redundant.

The Nevada Appeal also published their list in the newspaper this weekend, but I can't find it online, so no link for you. Sorry.

Carson City, or I should say Douglas County, is getting a new Qdoba restaurant soon. Qdoba is part of the wave of "fast casual" Mexican restaurants that have hit Reno in recent years, along with Baja Fresh and Bajio. Places like this are a good balance between going out for a full sit-down meal, like you would at El Charro or Mi Casa Too, or grabbing some overprocessed crap at a place like Taco Bell or Del Taco. The ingredients are fresh, you get your order fast, and while you're not paying 59 cents for a taco, they don't charge $12 for a combo plate either.

Qdoba is the first one of the trio I mentioned to break free of Reno and make their way down south to our area. Even though, out of the three, it's probably my least favorite. I'd be much more excited about seeing a Baja Fresh or Bajio in this space. But, since we're not getting those (not yet, anyway), Qdoba is a perfectly fine substitute. It's always fun to get a new and different place to eat, and I'm sure we'll be seeing the inside of this Qdoba more than I expect.

This construction also marks the last bit of empty space available in the Carson Valley Plaza. When they first built it four years ago, they had left a few pads open for future development. And one by one, they've all been filled in. We never got the sit-down restaurant I was hoping for, something to compete with the Chili's across the street, and there are only a couple of places in the whole shopping center that are local, non-chain restaurants. But there are a lot more dining choices than we had five years ago, so that's something to be thankful for.

I expect Qdoba to be open before the end of the year, at the rate they're building it. More tenants should be filling in the empty storefronts by then too.

It looks like the Record Courier in Gardnerville is planning on publishing a big coffee table book of historic pictures of Douglas County and the Carson Valley. They published one seven years ago, and the Carson Valley Historic Photo Album they created in 2000 turned out to be a pretty awesome book. I'd say you need to get down to the Douglas County Library and check it out to look for yourself.

This new book sounds like they're going to focus on more recent photos, mostly ones from the 40s, 50s and 60s. From what I can tell they're still gathering photos, so there's no release date for the book yet, but they are taking pre-orders at a reduced price. The announcement and order form are here (in PDF form).

They're also putting out a call for Valley residents to come forward with pictures they think would be good for the book. And to that end they're holding three public scanning sessions next week, where you can bring your photos to them, and they'll zip them through a scanner in seconds. They don't guarantee that the pictures will make the book, but there are sure to be some gems that turn up this way.

The scanning sessions are listed here (also in PDF).

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2007
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Carson Valley Museum
1477 U.S. Highway 395 N
Gardnerville, NV (775)782-2555

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2007
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Genoa Courthouse Museum
2304 Main Street
Genoa, NV (775)782-4325

Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007
10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Carson Valley Museum
1477 U.S. Highway 395 N
Gardnerville, NV (775)782-2555

A few thoughts about this project:

* I love it, and I'm probably pre-ordering a copy
* I think they should put up a website with all the photos, even the ones that didn't make it into the book. Especially the ones the public brings in.
* I'm jealous and I want all these pictures for my own online history photo gallery that I'm building.
* The name of the book, Looking Back, is the same name I picked for my own online history photo gallery, which is still in development. Looks like I might have to change it.

It seems some Minden residents aren't happy with the plans for the Minden Gateway Center commercial center, which would feature dining, shopping, and a three-story hotel at the corner of Hwys 395 and 88 at the north end of town. At issue specifically is the hotel, which under the current plans is practically being built in people's backyards, blocking their view of, well, everything, as well as giving hotel guests a direct view into their kitchens and bedrooms.

The hotel is in blue, green is a supermarket, red is a drug store.

It would be a shame to see the whole deal fall through just because of this, though. Hopefully the developer is open to making a few changes to make the neighbors happy. There have been plans tossed around for that intersection for decades now, but these newest ones are the first ones that really smell real to me. Long-timers will remember that for years there was a sign at the corner advertising "Coming Soon - Safeway!" The sign, I think, was even replaced with a newer one once, but Safeway never arrived. And across the street, next to where the Minden Medical Center now sits, there were plans for a large hotel/casino resort to anchor the north end of town and provide competition for CVI's customers. All of those projects fell though. The Minden Gateway has some momentum behind it right now, but this pushback from residents might slow it down a bit. Plus, there's the fact that the footings of the new Bully's Sports bar, which was being built next door to the new Arby's, have remained half-poured and neglected for months now, which makes me think even that small project died. Something big like the Minden Gateway might just be another failed project that we talk about five years from now, saying "remember when" as we look out over a weed-strewn empty lot.

Clearing the land for MGC, November 28, 2006.