News 7-10-08 Downtown Walk
Post your commentsPosted by: RenoSteve - 7/11/2008 4:04:55 AM
Mike, Herb Simon - a principal in the SK Baseball Group - is one of the largest shopping mall operators on the planet. Not long ago his firm bought Meadowood Mall. More recently the baseball group was named the master developer - or some such term - for a large section of downtown called the "baseball district." See this map courtesy of renoballparkupdate http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=k&om=1&msa=0&msid=113367413719929791499.00043fb26545f9fcff80b&ll=39.528043,-119.809427&spn=0.011784,0.018711&z=16 The "ballpark district" is designed to become a revitalized downtown shopping/entertainment area. Now Simon and his Baseball group are apparently purchasing GSR, or have at least bought the right to redevelop the massive surface parking lot area surrounding the existing hotel casino. It is certainly possible that they will choose to continue with the previous owners plan of building a huge indoor water park as part of their redevelopment, but - given Simon's vast experience with shopping malls and the prime central location of the property, serviced by TWO freeway offramps - I would think that he also intends to create A LOT MORE upscale retail shopping and restaurants on that property. If Simon's group is able to procure STAR Bonds - like RED did for their Legends at Sparks Marina project - those bonds will finance much of the huge development costs and make building another "destination shopping mall" much less financially risky for the developer and the baseball group may well hit a financial home run.