Construction Around Carson

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts. There has been construction happening here and there around town, and I’ve been driving by but not stopping to take pictures. But it’s always interesting to go back after these things are built and look at the photos from when they were half done. So it’s good to drive around town and check up on what new stuff has been coming together. The prevailing theme this time seems to be that there is a lot of new residential being built, and a lot of open space being plowed under.

Lompa Ranch

One of the most interesting developments is also one of the ones that’s been on our radar for the longest. It was the year 2006, 16 years ago, when it was announced that the Lompa Ranch had been sold to developers. The Lompa Ranch was one of Carson City’s last remaining cattle ranches. It was located along Saliman and Fifth Streets, bounded by the freeway to the east and Carson High to the north. When you look at it on a satellite photo, you can see that it’s quite large.


An aerial photo of the ranch from 1984. Before the freeway, and even before anything was built south of Fifth Street.

It was about 400 acres total that was sold in 2006, all of the empty space in the photo above. At the time we thought that it would be built on quickly. 2006 was the height of the housing bubble and it seemed like anything that was built there would sell quickly. But planning and permitting takes some time, and during that process the housing market crashed, and suddenly nobody had any interest in building new housing in Carson City. So the Lompa Ranch sat, undeveloped, for over a decade. We started to wonder if they would ever follow through on the plans. Here and there I would get tidbits that the wheels were still in motion, that something would happen on the land eventually. The land was being subdivided, and plans were formulating for parts of it to be single family housing, parts of it to be apartments, and other plans for retail and office space. But so much time passed with nothing happening. In the mid 2010s the housing market started to recover, and a groundbreaking took place, just south of the high school. But even that was minor. Some earthmovers went to work along Robinson Street, and moved dirt around, but nothing really took shape from that work. Just a mound of dirt.

June 2018

But recently, things finally started coming together. The earthmovers moved in for real. Shapes were formed in the fields, and recognizable streets started appearing. Underground utilities were put in, followed by sidewalks and paved roads. And now, even though it’s only a small percentage of the available space, a new housing development is finally coming together on the Lompa Ranch.

One of the entrances to the development is here, off of Saliman. That driveway is a continuation of Evan Street, which now provides a way into the new neighborhood.
Another entrance is from Robinson Street. This part of Robinson used to be little more than a driveway for the high school and school bus yard. But it was widened and repaved, with new sidewalks and landscaping. It now travels down to the second entrance to the new neghborhood.
Robinson dead ends here. Future development is planned straight ahead. But for now, the road to the right enters the new neighborhood.
Drainage was a major part of the work they had to do. When this was a ranch, flood waters from the rest of town were allowed to flow freely through here, as they had done for thousands of years. With the new development, though, those waters need to be tamed into channels to keep the water contained on its way to the river.
Most of the streets have “Peak” names. Pilot Peak is here, Other streets are Monitor Peak, Pearl Peak, and Wildcat Peak.
Some of the streets are finished and open to traffic, though it is still an active construction zone, so you probably want to avoid it during work hours.
Other streets are still in progress.
Houses are already under construction and available for sale.
This development is called Cross Creek, and it’s being built and sold by Ryder Homes. Prices start at $529,999. I think those prices indicate that the housing market has not only recovered, it has skyrocketed.
The first few houses, near Saliman, are nearing completion. These will serve as the model homes.
Their conceptual plan shows the houses that are already under construction, as well as future phases. To the south, off of Fifth, an apartment development is planned. A lot of the land is still to be determined.
This spot will be the entrance off Fifth to the apartments.
The Lompa family ranch house still exists off of Fifth Street. It is staying for now.
The barn and outbuildings still exist too.
The drainage ditch continues next to Fifth Street.
From the top of the Fifth Street bridge, you can look out over the Lompa Ranch. The houses being built are about in the center of the photo, in the distance. All the rest of this will be built out one day. it may take another 10-20 years, but this view will be very different one day.

Andersen Ranch

Another ranch is being plowed under for a housing development, though this one is more recent. This one hasn’t been in the works quite as long as the Lompa Ranch, though as you’ll see later, it has been planned for a very long time. The Andersen Ranch is on the west side of town. It stretches between Mountain Street and Ormsby Blvd, and is sandwiched between housing developments that have been in place for decades.

The neighborhoods to the north and south were built in the 70s and 80s, but the ranch in between never got built out and remained a working cattle ranch. And that’s how the residents liked it. They got used to having empty space there and didn’t want that missing piece to be built. But just like the Lompa Ranch, it was inevitable that this land would be developed. The residents fought against it and tried to keep the land as open space, but to no avail. The rising housing market made the land too valuable. It took several years of fighting and negotiation, multiple revisions to the plan, and COVID delays, but in 2022 the bulldozers finally came in and started tearing up the ranchland.

Seen from Ormsby Blvd, the land clearing is progressing.
The vegetation has been cleared, and the streets are starting to be carved out.
Water and sewer pipes are ready to be buried. In the foreground is the entrance to the neighborhood off Ormsby Blvd.
Another entrance to the neighborhood will be here, on Mountain Street. Looks like the telephone pole needs to be moved.
This is the final map for the neighborhood. If you notice at the top and bottom, you can see streets that connect to the older neighborhoods. These streets were deliberately built 50 years ago to connect to a future development here on this land.
For decades La Mirada has dead-ended into the field here. Soon it will extend further.
Lexington Ave on the south will also connect.
And Richmond as well.
Here lies Open Spaces.

Little Lane

There are little empty lots all over town, and a lot of them are getting filled in this year. This empty lot along Little Lane had been surrounded by development on all sides, but was never built on itself. The Arbor Villas townhouses were built on the west part of the lot a few years ago, but the rest had stayed empty until now.

This neighborhood is called the Homes at Little Lane. The lots are smaller here, so the houses are skinnier and more vertical. But they’re still priced the same, starting in the low $500,000s. They’re building them at a fast clip. Quite a few are finished already, and there are several others in various stages of completion.

Arbor Villas

Right next door, the first phase of Arbor Villas has been finished for a couple of years. But now they are working on the second phase, located behind the others.

Marlette Apartments

And right across the street on Little Lane is another empty lot, where they’ve announced more apartments to be built. Named The Marlette Apartments, construction hasn’t started yet but is expected soon. This is directly behind the post office.

Lucky Strike Casino

This one also has a long history. In 2017, longtime Carson City restaurant Grandma Hattie’s closed for good. The building stayed empty for a year, and I did a Ghosts of Carson article on it. In 2018 it was announced that the building and land was bought by the Lucky Strike Casino, a small casino located in the shopping center at William and Stewart. They were looking to expand and were interested in remodeling Grandma Hattie’s to meet their needs. But for a long time after the purchase nothing happened. Eventually, the Grandma Hattie’s building was torn down, but then the land stayed empty for another long while. It wasn’t clear if the casino project had fallen through, or if it was just delayed.

Last year construction finally started on the site. It was confirmed that it was the Lucky Strike Casino project, come back to life after a few years of dormancy. Construction has been going quickly for several months now. The outside of the structure seems to be finished now, though they still have a lot of work to do on the parking lot and landscaping. It’s expected to open this summer.

Silver View Townhomes

Another small empty lot is being filled with townhouses. This one is located at the northwest corner of Clearview and Silver Sage. These are called the Silver View Townhomes and there are supposed to be 34 units built.

Carson City Pediatric Dentistry

In 2017 Q’s BBQ in the Silver City Mall closed due to a kitchen fire. They never reopened. The building has been sitting empty all this time. Until recently. Last year remodeling started, and signs went up for Carson City Pediatric Dentistry. I had hoped this would reopen as another restaurant one day, but this is better than seeing the building sit empty forever.

Grocery Outlet

On this one, construction is already finished and the grand opening was held last week. Grocery Outlet has moved from their longtime home on Carson Street to the Plaza 50 shopping center on William Street. This building used to house the Warehouse Market and Scolari’s supermarkets. The last tenant was Sak N Save, which closed in 2010. It sat empty for a while (another Ghosts of Carson), and then in 2014 it was remodeled and split into two storefronts. The other storefront has been occupied by the 99 Cent Only store for several years, but this storefront has sat empty. Late last year they started prepping it for a new tenant, and Grocery Outlet announced that they would be moving in.

405 N. Roop

This large barn structure has been coming together at 405 N. Roop, at the corner of Roop and Telegraph. It’s hard to say what it’s going to be used for; this one will be interesting to keep an eye on. The house next door is historic, so it’s good to see it being preserved.

6 comments

  1. Thank you, for such a thorough roundup of building. I’m gonna send this to my wife so she can show her family. She’s fifth-generation Carson City native. Development seems to be occurring in many small and medium-sized towns and cities in numerous areas. I remember seeing farmland disappear from a town where I worked and lived for a considerable number of years. It had all been dairy and beef land. Now it’s houses and townhomes. It’s kind of sad.

  2. I agree it is sad. Especially because the new houses are so expensive! Maybe the townhouses will be affordable? But I sure do have fond memories of seeing the farm animals at Lompa Ranch, raising my ‘city kid’ to know a little bit about farm & ranch life. But hey & yay for Grocery Outlet; I loved and missed that store!

  3. I knew about most of these but not about the Carson City Pediatric Dentistry going into the old Q’s BBQ restaurant building. That’s news to me. I haven’t been in that shopping center in a while, obviously. Let me add to the history on that building. It was originally built in the middle 1970’s as a Sirloin Stockade steak house and I worked there as a teen as a busboy and dishwasher for 5 months. I agree a new restaurant there would have been nice, but a dentistry office is better than nothing and it being an empty building for years and years.

  4. Thank you for keeping up to date on this, it is good to see you back. I was wondering about the 405 N Roop street for a while. There is another building on North Carson across from Denny’s that is being built next to a gas station turned into small store.

  5. Thank you, Scott for sharing! We moved here from CA in Nov 2019. We bought a home built in 1967. We always buy used things, homes, cars, etc with a goal of less ‘footprints.’ It wasn’t until after we moved in we learned on the Anderson Property (in our neighborhood) and the battle lost (as usual 🙁 ) by The People who wished to leave SOME open spaces in our neighborhood as well as hoping for future builds to mimic our already existing ‘hood. Sadly, it’s just not to be, government is always so money hungry and prefers to not manage our money but rather build to the max for the tax dollars. Which will not disappear because they always want want want more more more money. It is an endless cycle. But the history of all the ranches being converted to concrete is sad. I guess, having escaped from CA, we were hoping this small town would not mimic CA.

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