Photo by RenoTahoe at Flickr
Reno yesterday celebrated the grand opening of the West Street Market. The market is sort of a permanent farmer’s market, with bars and eateries in the mix; kind of a mini version of Seattle’s Pike Place market. The market was built this year out of a couple of buildings and a courtyard a block away from the river, and it represents an exciting movement to make an area of downtown into a destination. The businesses that spring up in the market can then take advantage of that destination status. This is something that Carson City doesn’t have, but desperately needs. This summer we had a good beginning with the Curry Street Promenade, but that by nature was just an ephemeral thing, focused around the Saturday farmer’s markets. But there still aren’t any real destination spots in downtown Carson, and for the revitalization of downtown to be a success, that’s what we’re going to need.
The Reno bloggers have done a great job of covering the West Street Market. Downtown Makeover has a slideshow, as does ecoBrand. Ken of The Urban Blog was down from Seattle and wrote a report on the opening. The Reno-Tahoe Blog looks at the opening, and the RGJ wrote a story about it.
