It’s been several months since I wrote about the Reno Condo Invasion. And since I don’t spend much time in Reno, I haven’t been following all the developments and new projects going on downtown. Luckily there are a few good Reno blogs popping up on the scene now, and they’re doing the work for me. A few of them, like Yukon Sully and Myrna The Minx, even live in downtown condos, so I bow to their hands-on expertise. And just today, Diane Cohn, of the Reno Realty Blog, posted an update outlining her thoughts about some of the downtown condo projects, as well as a few that I missed, like the Sierra Vista Towers on West 4th Street and the Village at Idelwild Park.
I definitely like to see new blogs about the Reno-Carson area. Diane’s even has a podcast! If you know of any other new ones, send them my way!
Some recently announced proposals that are not mentioned…
The first – another multiple highrise project even bigger than the Waterfront – is covered in the following RGJ link. This project is in the VERY preliminary stages and has not been presented publicly as yet, but the sheer size of the apparent proposal – a 40 story tower and another 28 story tower – is astounding. As reported, it would contain 390 residences and occupy all of the vacant riverfront property south of Wingfield Park which lies both east and south of the existing Park Towers condominiums. I would be quite surprised if this proposal goes thru without being downsized – due to the visual impact on nearby residents – but who knows?
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060120/NEWS10/601200421/1002
There are also a number of lowrise condo projects in process.
One is just north of the new Washoe Med construction between 2nd Street and Kuenzli and just west of the “split” where westbound 2nd Street traffic is routed down to Kuenzli. Silver Star has acquired this entire 6 acre block and will bulldoze all the existing buildings to build 164 condos beginning this spring. Washoe Med is involved and wants the condos as “affordable housing” for staff.
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060120/NEWS10/601200422/1002
Silver Star has also acquired about 5.5 acres of vacant land just east of the Automobile Museum and is preparing to build 125-145 condos on that property which lies just south of the river. The Reno Redevelopment Agency is finalizing plans to sell a small contiguous parcel to a Silver Star entity called Riverfront Village, LLC which bears the name of the proposed development. Note in link that the sale agreement includes the developer and the Reno Redevelopment Agency each contributing $100,000 toward another “kayak facility” at the location.
http://www.cityofreno.com/Jan06/pdfs/0625Redev4.pdf
Also, two Ryder Homes projects are just going thru rezoning prior to full approval which will demolish and rebuild virtually two entire city blocks. The first is a rezoning of the block which lies on the southeast corner of the intersection of Holcomb and Mill (immediately southeast of the Riverfront Village parcel). The second is most all of the block which lies Northeast of the intersection of Ryland and Sinclair – a block or so southwest of the Holcomb/Mill site. Both parcels are being rezoned MFHD (multi family high-density) and both will likely be condo projects of at least the 50 units mentioned in the rezoning applications. Ryder is a big national builder and will likely proceed promptly.
The two projects were #6 and #8 on the linked Jan 18 planning commission agenda.
http://www.ci.reno.nv.us/gov/boards/pdfs/board_pdfs/PlanningCommission-01-18-06-Links.pdf
They are slated to go before the city council on Feb 8 as items 7A and 7B.
http://www.cityofreno.com/gov/boards/pdfs/board_pdfs/Feb8Reg.pdf
I have not yet seen any details, but I would suspect that several more projects will soon begin to take shape on and around the many acres of railroad land that the city now owns (or is about to gain title to) as part of the trench deal. There is quite a bit of both city owned and privately owned vacant land north of 2nd Street (and the river), south of the trench and east of Harrahs which will soon be in a prime location when the new Lake Street and Evans Street crossings are completed in a few weeks. There is even more of this type of depressed and underutilized property, held by both private parties, the city and other public entities, south of the tracks and north of 2nd Street from Arlington all the way west across Keystone to where the trench starts as Second Street turns into Dickerson. I think that this whole area will turn into various types of new development – mostly high density housing – as the city sells its railroad acquisitions, probably conditioned upon the buyer promptly redeveloping it.
I don’t know when this downtown boom will go bust, but right now it is really rolling.
Thanks for the link. Every so often I get some traffic from Carson City. I especially enjoyed the freeway report.