Tag: minden

I didn't know there was a movement afoot to shut down the Minden airport, but I'd have to agree with this opinion piece that it's a "bad plan".

The USPS in Minden is looking to relocate. The Minden post office is this tiny little box of a place that has been relatively untouched since 1974. It's in a prime location, though, right on Highway 395 across the street from the Carson Valley Inn. It's very nearly in the center of town, easily accessible by road and by foot. But the problem is that it's too small, and the lot it's on is boxed in and too small to build a replacement.

So the post office has to move, and the USPS has started the process of looking for a new space. It needs to be big and roomy, with plenty of parking. They look first for an existing building that fits the criteria, and if they can't find one they next look for an empty lot to build on. So I'm trying to think about downtown Minden, and what kind of empty buildings we have that would be a good match for the post office, and only one image keeps popping into my head.

Think they'll go for it?

Once again downtown Minden has been decorated for Christmas. The lights were switched on a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn't until just this week that I got down there to see them. And to take pictures, of course.

The CVIC Hall is always the centerpiece of Esmeralda Street, lit up from floor to ceiling.

Inside the CVIC Hall they have this window display, of Santa taking a load off during his nightly rounds.

The town "Christmas Tree" is actually the flagpole. But the gazebo is always done up nicely for the holidays.

There are so many lights here the gazebo is actually off-limits, roped off so you don't trip over the extension cords. This year it's fixed up to look like a carousel, with light-up horses placed around the outside.

Pictures can never compare to actually getting out and seeing the real thing, so I suggest you do just that. Many of the houses around the square are decorated too. Add in dinner at Barone and Reed or Francisco's, and you could make an evening of it.

I know it hardly feels like winter has even started around here, given that we haven't had any snow since September. But now that Thanksgiving is in our rear-view mirror, it's time to start looking forward to Christmas. Already decorations are popping up on houses around the area, and a whole host of civic Christmas events are planned for the next week. Here's what's coming up:

Carson City

Silver & Snowflakes Holiday Tree Lighting will be on Thursday December 6, 2007 from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM. Festivities begin on the Capitol grounds. The State trees will be lit, Santa will give out candy canes, and the 300 voices of the Carson City 5th Grade Music Students Singing Ensemble will contribute the music. A warm feeling envelops the Capitol as families gather to hear children sing and to watch the tree and all of Carson Street spring to light. The young and young at heart all squeal with delight as Santa and his helper arrive in a decorated 1926 Model T, driven by Beau the dog. Sixteen creative willow "reindeer" made the week of the event by local school children and Boy Scouts, under the guidance of "Willow" Bill, will be placed on the Capitol lawn and above the Capitol portico and lit with white lights.

5:30 PM Carson City 5th Grade Music Students Singing Ensemble starts to sing. Carson Middle School Red Hot Bell Peppers handbell choir will accompany them.
5:30 PM Santa Arrives in a 1926 Model T Ford. He will give out candy canes.
5:40 PM Remarks by Gov. Jim and Mrs. Dawn Gibbons
5:45 PM Tree Lighting; all of Carson Street is lit up.
5:55 PM Remarks by Carson City Mayor Marv Teixiera
6:00 PM Candlelight Procession to City Tree at Musser & Nevada Streets (First Presbyterian Church). Songs by the BAC In Time Carolers.
6:15 PM City Tree Lighting by Mayor Teixeira.
6:30-7:00 PM City Hall Open House. Art Contest winners announced and prizes given by the Mayor. BAC In Time Carolers will sing. Refreshments will be served.

Minden

Minden's annual Weihnachts Strasse Fest, German Christmas Market, opens noon, Nov. 30 in the old C.O.D. Garage. Toys, handicrafts, candles, ceramics and woodwork will be featured in about 30 booths. Many traditional German specialties such as stollen, gingerbread, pretzels, sausages and gluewein (hot spiced wine) as well as Chinese food will be available. Hot cider and cookies will be served by the Carson Valley Inn. Hours of the market are noon to 8 p.m. Nov. 30, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Dec. 1 and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 2.

The lights of the Minden gazebo will be turned on 6 p.m. Friday night, Nov. 30, with the help of Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus. Children get one free picture with Santa on Friday night at Santa's house in the Christmas market.

The 12th annual Parade of Lights begins 5 p.m. Dec. 1 at Lampe Park in Gardnerville, traveling on Highway 395 and ending in Minden Park around 6 p.m. This year's theme is Holiday Traditions from Around the World.

Live music at the Christmas Market Saturday night and a live Christmas play on Sunday afternoon.

Gardnerville

The Town of Gardnerville presents the third Carson Valley Christmas Season Kick Off, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28 at the Heritage Park pavilion. The family-oriented event features the Sierra Ringers from Carson Valley United Methodist Church, a quartet singing holiday music and Carson Valley Community Theater's presentation of Santa's Little Helper Part 3, "Which Way is North?" The park pavilion will be lit and Santa Claus will be on hand to welcome children young and old to the 2007 Christmas season. Also on the program is the dedication of the Zelda Shaw Memorial.

Come and join us for hot chocolate, hot apple cider, provided by Red's 395 Grill, popcorn courtesy of Gardnerville Water Co. and a holiday treat provided by the Town of Gardnerville. Carriage rides around the park will also be available.

Virginia City

The Parade of Lights, Virginia City's traditional Christmas Parade will start at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec 1. Prizes will be awarded for the best entries. Call the visitors center at 847-4FUN (4386) or visit the Visitor Center for more information and an entry form.

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.

With one business closing in downtown Minden, the plans are underway to open another one. And this one has the potential to bring a steady stream of people downtown, something Minden needs very much.

This is a relaunch of the plans from two years ago to convert the old C.O.D. Garage building into a casino and bakery. The Hellwinkel family, who owns the building, had a partnership in 2005 with the owners of Slotworld in Carson City to get the casino built, but that deal fell apart. Now the Hellwinkels have new partners, the owners of the Fallon Nugget, and they're looking to make it stick this time.

In addition to the casino, there will also be a Schat’s Bakery, museum space, and a day spa as part of the project. There's no word of all the trouble the casino ran into last time it was proposed, where Sharkey's tried to get a 100-room requirement passed for new casinos in Douglas County. So maybe that's blown over. They are running into parking problems, but the town board seems to think they can wave that away with a variance, because downtown is so dead most of the time that casino patrons can use other parking lots in the area with no problem.

So while it hardly seems like we need another casino, this might be the jolt that downtown Minden needs to come back to life. And adaptive reuse is always a good thing, especially for old buildings like this.

Now let's get somebody interested in the old Flour Mill. Please?

I've often said that Minden probably has the best downtown in all of Western Nevada. It's small, just a few blocks, but there is a park right there, wide sidewalks, trees and landscaping, and some great old buildings. There is also no traffic, because the highway bypasses downtown one block to the north. Which makes it a perfect little downtown, but also makes it dead most days. It's only when there is a special event that there's any kind of real human presence downtown; the rest of the time it's like a ghost town. So much so, that the few businesses down there have a hard time of things. The Bank Parlor and Pub just closed this week because they weren't making enough money to stay open.

So how instructive is this for Carson City's downtown? When the freeway is finally finished, downtown will be bypassed, at least for people who are just passing through town. I can't imagine it will end up being this empty, but still. Is downtown Carson attractive enough to bring people in even when they don't have to be there? I think Carson has an advantage over Minden in that it's already established, with many more restaurants and shops, and it's bigger so there are more attractions to draw people in. But with everybody talking about how great it will be when Carson City's downtown is bypassed, we need to keep in mind that the West is littered with downtowns that died after a freeway was built and all the action moved to the edge of town. Carson City has to keep its focus on making sure people want to come downtown, and that means making sure it never gets a chance to turn into a ghost town like Minden.

These pictures were actually taken during a special event. For Minden, this is crowded.

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.

The gazebo at Minden Park isn't the only place you'll be able to see concerts this summer. There is also a concert series going on at the Minden Village shopping center, you know, the one just west of the Carson Valley Inn. Nestled in between the Quiznos Subs and the Cold Stone Creamery, the sidewalk of this strip mall will be transformed into a concert venue six times this summer.

June 16 - Beppe Gambetta

July 7 - Michael Powers

July 21 - Michael Gulezian

August 3 - Bob Malone Band

August 18 - Scott Huckabay

September 1 - Duo-Tones

And most remarkably, all of these artists have agreed to play for tips in order to keep the concerts free to the public. So if you come, bring your lawn chairs, grab a sub from Quizno's, and drop a few dollars in the hat after the show. All shows start at 7:00pm, and most of them are on Saturday night, except for Bob Malone which is on Friday.

Also check out the concert series' website for more details.