Tag: minden

The Record Courier has a list of all the Christmas events that are coming up in the Carson Valley over the next couple of weeks, with the big ones being the lighting of the Gardnerville Christmas tree, Wednesday Dec 3rd at 5:30pm in Heritage Park, and the big Parade of Lights which travels from Lampe Park to downtown Minden along Hwy 395. That's Saturday night, Dec 6th, starting at 5:00pm.

And also remember the Carson City Christmas tree lighting, Thursday night, Dec 4th, on the Capitol grounds at 5:30pm.

The new Holiday Inn Express hotel at the Minden Gateway Center is coming along nicely. It's still the only construction taking place at the center, though. Work on all the retail and office space is holding back for the moment.

Interesting that they're building it in two halves. The north half is up to three floors already, but the south half is only on the first floor still. And there seems to be some kind of atrium connecting the two halves.

I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's done! Hopefully there will be some interesting architecture to it, not just another square box.

Two months ago the news came out that the U.S. Postal Service had decided not to build a new post office in Minden because of the economy. Well, Minden is not too happy about the decision and is going after the Post Office, even supporting the land owner whom the USPS was going to buy from, claiming they should reimburse the $160,000 he spent on his end of the deal. The Post Office says no way, they don't owe him squat.

Big things are happening in Minden. After something like two years of work on the site, they're finally going vertical at the Minden Gateway Center. This week the first walls were raised on the first of what is supposed to be nine or ten buildings in the center. I don't know if they're going to keep working through the winter, but it seems unlikely that they'd stop for two months now that they've started.

I'm trying to figure out exactly which structure this is. It's at the east side of the property, and matching it up with the maps of the site makes it look like this will be the hotel. But doesn't it look too small to be a hotel? Maybe it's the perspective, or maybe because they just started framing. But this doesn't look as big as the hotel is supposed to be. So we'll have to keep an eye on it.

Much more lumber is stacked up on the edges of the site, waiting to be used. I think that we're going to see some real progress at the Gateway Center over the next couple of months.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how the cottonwoods of Minden along County Road were doomed because of disease, age, and street improvements. Well they move quick in Minden, and now the trees are gone.

Now work will continue to lay an underground storm drain to carry the water from that ditch, then a sidewalk will be poured on top of it. New trees should be planted next spring.

One nice thing that the town of Minden offers is a "Safe Street" on Halloween night, where instead of trick or treating door to door you can go to one place downtown where local businesses have set up booths, and you can trick or treat booth-to-booth in a safe, warm, indoor environment.

The Safe Street is usually held in the CVIC Hall, just one good use of that great community gathering place. But this year Minden is moving the Safe Street, because the CVIC Hall is being used for early voting that night. Instead it will be held at the Douglas County Engine Company fire station, just one block away. If you have little kids, it might be a good alternative to regular trick or treating.

It's a fact that trees get old and sick, and the time comes that you either have to pull them out or face the danger of them toppling in a wind storm. That's the case with many of the old cottonwoods around downtown Minden, and that's why many of them are being removed. Several of the large trees that line County Road are coming out, as part of a larger project to put in sidewalks and send the old irrigation canals in that part of town underground.

The cottonwoods between First and Fourth, seen above, will be cut down by the end of the month. Kind of an ignoble end to the trees that have probably been around for the better part of a century. The ditch that runs along County Road is part of the old irrigation systems that used to (and still do) distribute water from the Carson River all over the valley. The land that Minden sits on used to be part of the Dangberg Ranch, but I don't know if there are any records showing if these trees were around before the town was founded in 1906. The main thing is, they old, and with trees old means stately but it also means hazardous. So unfortunately, it's time.

This irrigation canal will be put into an underground pipe, and a sidewalk laid along here.

Some nearby trees have already met their fate. Back behind the Minden Inn (which houses the county offices) there used to be a small parking lot under the shade of several large trees. This site was long planned to be the home of a parking garage which would have solved the parking problems in downtown Minden for decades to come. But it was finally decided there was no money for a garage, and they would just go for a surface lot instead. Both plans, though, called for the trees to be pulled out. That was done earlier this month.

Downtown isn't going to stay bare forever, though. These trees may be coming out, but next spring, after all the paving and sidewalks are done, new trees will be planted in their place. They won't be as stately at first, or as shady, but they'll grow, and they should be a part of Minden for the next hundred years.

For now, let's just hope the wood from the old trees is put to good use and not just tossed in a landfill.

Yesterday was the last day for the Minden DMV, which is moving to Gardnerville. This weekend they are moving all the equipment over and setting up shop at the new offices. In fact, about 30 seconds after I took these photos, a dozen guys with a moving van descended on the place to start moving the furniture.

Map to the new office

Department of Mot r Vehicles

The new office opens first thing Monday.

This weekend, the DMV in Minden is going to be packing up and moving into Gardnerville. They've been at the same location, on County Road right next to the library, for over 20 years. But they've outgrown that space and they're looking to move up in the world, so they have a new space being prepped for them at the Waterloo Center, across the street from Raley's in Gardnerville. This is the brand-new shopping center that is still in the process of being built next door to the Gardnerville Walgreens. I didn't think that center was ready to move into yet, but I guess they work fast. The DMV will close Thursday afternoon and stay closed Friday, and use the three-day weekend to move all their equipment into the new office. Then Monday morning they should be able to hit the ground running.

So what's to be done with the old building? That was a topic of some debate last year, after the DMV announced they would be looking for a new space. The county wanted to buy it, without any firm plan of what they would do with it, but they wanted to swoop in and get it while it was available. Some said that the purchase price of $800,000 was too high for the county to afford, especially for a building there were no immediate plans for. But the last I heard, the purchase was approved by the County Commission. That was in December, and I haven't heard anything new since, so I guess that's still the plan.

Another casualty of the slumping economy? Minden's new post office.