Tag: fandango

So I've been slacking in my duties, and I missed the opening of the new Courtyard by Marriott hotel next to the Casino Fandango. It opened on March 28th, adding 100 hotel rooms to Carson City's inventory. This brings the total number of rooms in Carson to 1,500. The article mentions that in a couple of years there will be 220 more when the Sierra Gold hotel opens, and it even makes a half-hearted attempt to bring the Ormsby House and its 135 rooms into the mix. "If it opens as planned," they say. That's a big if.

Marriott's website has a page devoted to the new hotel, and they're really trying to sell Carson City as a destination and get people to come visit. Here's their blurb:

Welcome to the Carson City Courtyard, located in the heart of the Carson Valley just 30 minutes from Reno and Lake Tahoe. Located in Nevada's historic State Capitol, this hotel is conveniently located close to area businesses including Carson-Tahoe Regional Medical Center, Harley-Davidson, and local government offices, and is just minutes from the Carson City Airport. Experience the Old West by visiting attractions such as the Divine Nine Golf Courses, Nevada Railroad Museum, Kit Carson Trail, Nevada State Museum, and Virginia City just up the hill. Enjoy the perfect steak or catch a flick at the Fandango Theater and Casino next door. Our spacious guest rooms include features such as plush beds, refreshing bath amenities, and Royal Cup coffee, and free high-speed Internet for your comfort and convenience. Try an upgrade to a roomy King Suite or the posh Players Suite! We offer breakfast daily in the Courtyard Cafe, drinks in our Lobby Bar, and everything else you need to enjoy your stay in Carson City!

Prices at the hotel start at $139 for a standard room with two queen beds, and goes up to $189 for the "Players Suite" with a separate bedroom.

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.

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.

There's always something exciting going on at the Casino Fandango. Their expansion plans have been active nearly non-stop since they opened in 2003. And right now they have a couple of big projects going on at once. One of them is this, the new hotel tower they're building on the site of the old RV dealership.

Work is progressing on the second story as the walls are framed up for the hotel rooms.

They're also getting close to the end of construction on their new movie theater. The structural work is finished, so now they're working on cosmetic details, like this swooping curve that's going to stand out over the main entrance.

And this, I really don't know what's happening here. This is the empty space at the bottom of the hill between Curry Street and the back wall of the casino. I keep hearing about a casino expansion that's in the works, 24,000 additional square feet, so maybe this is prep work for all of that. And it could include some kind of bridge over Curry Street to safely bring people to the movie theater. I really don't know, but it looks exciting, whatever it is.

And finally, inside the building they're going to be opening a new Italian restaurant this summer. They just never stop, do they?

Yes, I'm back from my vacation, unpacking, decompressing and trying to get back into the groove. I came back to see some progress on a few construction projects, which is always exciting.

The arena at the Carson City Fairgrounds has been wiped out, part of the project to improve and update the fairgrounds. I know some of the plans for what should be done in this space were kind of controversial; hopefully everything worked out and everyone will be happy.

The Bodine's Casino, right next door, is starting to form up its pillars. This is supposed to be an underground parking garage, with the casino and restaurants above it. Bodine's is also footing a large part of the bill for the fairgrounds improvements.

And, in the two weeks I was gone, the Casino Fandango hotel went vertical in a big way. Looks like the whole first floor is all framed up, and they're just about ready to start on the second. Moving fast!

I'm sure there's a lot more that happened in the last two weeks. I have about fourteen newspapers I have to go through!

The South Carson construction projects just keep on trucking along. The two big ones that I can see during my daily commute are the Oasis Trailer Park, and the Casino Fandango's movie theater.

The Oasis Trailer park has been completely wiped out. They've been working for the last year to move all the trailers out, but ever since the bulldozers moved in several weeks ago they've been knocking down trees and the few buildings that were left. Now they've even ripped up the streets, and it's just a big empty dirt lot.

What's going in here is another retail/office complex from the Ribeiro Corp. It will be called the Carson-Tahoe Quail Park, to follow the Ribeiro tradition of putting the word "quail" in all their properties.

And just up the street, the Fandango movie theater is coming together nicely. The four walls are up, and now they're working on the roof. It's supposed to be open by this summer, in time for the next Harry Potter movie, and for once I can actually believe a construction estimate when I see one. What a shock!

Curry Street is reopen too, at least from Clearview north to the Fandango's parking garage. It's still a really rough dirt road; I guess they're putting off paving it until later. But at least you can drive along it and get a closer look at the movie theater. And the top floor of the parking garage is open again. Since the only access to it is from Curry Street, it's been closed for months.

Yes, I've been offline for a few days. But as a way of appeasing you, here are a couple of pictures of the work that's going on over at the Casino Fandango. It looks like ground has been broken for the four-story hotel they're building in their parking lot.

Just a couple of months ago they demolished some old blue sheds that were on this site, that used to be part of the old RV dealership that was here before the Fandango moved in.

And the movie theater on Curry Street is also coming along nicely.

After covering the Ormsby House for so long, it's strange to see actual progress on a casino construction project.

Construction has finally started on the Casino Fandango's movie theater. They've been clearing the ground and prepping the foundation for most of the year, but now the walls are actually starting to go up.

It's kind of hard to watch the construction, since Curry Street is closed, and from Carson Street everything is hidden behind the Fandango's parking garage. But now that it's gone vertical it should be a little easier to see.

Curry Street was closed so they could regrade and repave it. They also closed Voltaire Canyon Road, seemingly permanently, so they could build the theater. And they cut into the hill that used to be back there. Basically they had to do a lot of earthmoving to get to this point.

This is one of the final pieces of the Fandango's domination of South Carson. All they have left to build is the hotel tower they've been talking about. And then expand the casino more. And then build the retail shopping village. And then....