Home /
Other interesting council items for 7/15/09
7/13/09 - Some quick various tidbits:
- Ole Bridge Pub, a future pub in one of the riverfront commercial spaces in the Palladio, is applying for a liquor license on Wednesday's city council meeting. Exciting! 50
- The Kings Inn is on the agenda again for Wednesday's City Council Meeting. Hmmmmm. They are going to discuss options, and it has Sferazza's name attached to the item. I wonder what the options could be for, now that Washoe County reportedly has a lien on the property?
- The City Council seems very eager for the Reno Sparks Gospel Mission to be gone. Looks like my guess might have been right all along on who the city was working with in a public-private partnership (The Eldorado). In short, city of Reno staff for at least the past 6 months had been working on figuring out a way to build 2 parking garages downtown, one east of Virginia Street and one west of Virginia Street. And you've heard my report a dozen times or more from CAC/RAAB meetings that the city was working with a private entity for the 'west-of-virginia' garage. It's now revealed in city documents that the 'west-of-virginia' garage was to be located where the Reno Sparks Gospel Mission and adjacent eastern properties are. However due to the economy going sour, the parking garage is no longer feasible. But demolition of the buildings and the creation of a pay parking lot has been discussed. The Eldorado is willing to enter into a reimbursement agreement with the Redevelopment Agency to pay for the demolition of the RSGM building at this time and also pay for the parking lot as well. The Agency would be responsible to re-pay the Eldorado for part of the work. The time limit on this repayment request by the Eldorado is to be re-imbursed at least half by July 1, 2010, but negotiations on this have not been finalized. The Eldorado estimates the cost to be around $345,000 but is asking the city to re-imburse them half of the cost by 2010. The funding source for the re-payment has not been identified.
- STAR Bond Districts for Tessera and Freight House (Ballpark) - The big day for both these STAR Bond Districts. This subject has pretty much been beaten into the ground as much as possible, and the city council could not vote on it at the last meeting purely for legal resolution wording reasons, soooo at this meeting I expect just a quick review of the additions (Jessica Sferazza had asked about the possibility of adding the Grant's Landing property and 2nd Street Police Station as part of the Ballpark's STAR Bond District) and then the Redevelopment Agency board will make the findings it's supposed to make (Preponderance, etc) and then they approve, and off to the Nevada Tourism Commission and the Governor it goes. It's already been before the School Board, with approvals of both districts by the School Board.
Comments:
Post your commentsPosted by: Dakota Blu - 7/15/2009 10:34:44 AM
"In short, city of Reno staff for at least the past 6 months had been working on figuring out a way to build 2 parking garages downtown" The city needs some help if this is how they intend to plan for the future.
Posted by: DowntownMakeoverDude - 7/16/2009 9:10:45 AM
Im not sure I understand your comment Dakota. Its been a priority of the City Council for a long time to build two parking garages downtown. They have looked at this seriously in the past six months to a year, trying to find both locations, and private entities to work with. The City of Reno doesnt exactly have tens of millions of dollars lying around to build these with their own money, so they were hunting for private entities who might be interested in partnering. They found one months ago, for one of the parking garages (the one west of Virginia Street) and have been working on an MOU for quite a while, however the economy is preventing both the City and the private entity from having the funds to construct it right now. So the concept is to demo a closed down building on the site of where the parking garage was goign to go, and build a surface lot until the economy improves and the full project would move forward. Not quite sure whats so bad about planning like this...I think a worse plan would be to go into debt just to build a parking garage. I invite you go browse my archives, and see how far back the City has been planning this.
Posted by: remano - 7/16/2009 2:22:50 PM
I'm sure the final plans are a long way from complete, but I have my concerns about a parking garage on the old mission site. That is prime property abutting the train trench cover, and should be preserved for commercial development. I know future stages of the trench project call for development on the cover itself, but the space there is limited and suitable mostly for small kiosks and booths, each of which, by the way, will take away from the open space that can be used for special events. Look what surrounds the trench now: South side - Fitzferalds (closed), Old Reno (closed), the Shriner's (?) building (closed), Montage (keep your fingers crossed). North side - Eldorado receiving docks, Eldorado parking ramp, 3rd Street Bar, former motel (closed), the mission properties (closed). In short, in two blocks of some very expensive development that was supposed to energize and open up the downtown, there is only one going business and not much reason to go there. Why further limit opportunities with another parking garage there?
Posted by: remano - 7/16/2009 2:26:26 PM
I see in Mike's redcap of CC meeting that the plans are for the ground level to be occupied by retail, so I guess my earlier comments have been addressed. Sorry for the unnecessary post.
Posted by: Reno - 7/31/2009 2:43:21 AM
I heard that the Ole Bridge Pub is going to be owned by some of the same guys that own Sierra Tap House. Any truth to that?