Reno Development

[jwaters943]

I originally posted this in the Mountain West Forum, but someone suggested that I also post it here. Since Reno is quite close to the California/Nevada border I guess it makes sense some of you might be interested in development over here. Anway, here is a link to a very informative site detailing most of the major development in the city (both planned and under construction):

http://www.downtownmakeover.com/default.asp

Of the many projects proposed and under construction, the most impressive are The Waterfront Towers (downtown), The Wingfield Towers (downtown) & Grand Sierra Resort (east of downtown). It's quite an exciting time in The Biggest Little City in the World. As a native Renoite, it sure is nice to see downtown get rid of some of the sleazy motels in favor of some high-quality development. Now they just need to bring in some decent retail. (Currently, nearly all the good shopping and dining in Reno is located in the suburbs.)

Some teaser pics:

Waterfront Towers (New construction):

Wingfield Towers (New construction):

Belvedere Towers (former Sundowner Hotel/Casino):

The Montage (Former Flamingo Hilton/Golden Phoenix):

Grand Sierra Resort Complex (Former Reno Hilton):

[foxmtbr]

Yeah, this forum is probably more appropriate, but I'm not sure how many Reno forumers are out there...


Looks good!

[EastBayHardCore]

There prolly aren't that many Reno forumers but I'd assume there are a lot more Northern California forumers who are interested in Reno developments, such as myself.

[fflint]

I love Reno; I go there several times a year. It's always exciting to see new developments there, and I too would love a thread in here that keeps us up to date with all the changes.

I'm especially pleased with the way the downtown stretch of the Truckee has been developed and improved, and all the new housing construction/conversions downtown. It's becoming a surprisingly urban and urbane "little city." Now let's talk about improving Amtrak service to California and a local light rail system...

[J Church]

I wonder what the status is of that BRT from the university down Virginia?

[San Frangelino]

I'd assume there are a lot more Northern California forumers who are interested in Reno developments

And one So Cal Forumer. I have to say I find it the perfable Nevada Destination for myself, as opposed to Las Vegas which I am not fond of.

[tuy]

I agree, Reno is more related to California than to the rest of the Mountain West. Also, part of the Sacramento CSA is in Nevada and a close neighbor of Reno. Many Californians make weekend trips to the Reno Area, or have timeshares there.

[dimondpark]

Another HUGE Reno Fan here!

So I was looking at the City of Reno's Redevelopment website and came across an interesting fact..."Almost 25,000 employees can walk to their jobs downtown"...that's awesome!

[foxmtbr]

Well it looks like there's plenty of interest. Surprisingly, I've never actually been to Reno, I've only been as far as Stateline.

[Jay916]

Nice projects I will be in Reno in a couple of weeks and i better see some cranes in the sky

[leftopolis]

This article is perhaps a bit dated, but is nevertheless appropos to intentions of urban development in Reno.

Special report: Is Reno growth-smart?
BEN KIECKHEFER
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 12/18/2005

Eight "Best Practices" in Transit-Oriented Development
Establish an identity
Focus attention on supporting infrastructure
Create places that attract people
Promote development intensity/density
Create convenient pedestrian connections through street patterns/connectivity
High quality site layout and urban design
Manage parking
Incorporate public space and greenways
_ Source: "Best Practices in Transit Oriented Development," Clarion Associates prepared for the city of Reno, June 2004


It's a daily ritual in the Truckee Meadows to hop in the car. Many people do it several times a day, whether to get to work, the store, school or church. Walking from one place to another is often a hike rather than a stroll.
Such is the result of a city, like most throughout the country, where growth has been horizontal.
Reno's city limits have reached the California border and long-range plans call for them to stretch further north in the coming decades.
Acres of cow pasture have been converted to strip malls, athletic clubs, warehouses and tract homes.
What was once rural is now suburban, or even urban. Growth is the reality for the present and the future. Washoe County's total population grew from 194,000 in 1980 to 339,000 in 2000.
In the last five years, the population has grown even more quickly, and the county's population could approach 670,000 by 2030. With the continued diversification and expansion of Northern Nevada's job market and the continued influx of people from California, officials see no reason growth will subside. It's how that growth is managed that matters.
With most of Reno constrained by the Sierra Nevada and Virginia ranges, city officials would like to put more people and places along the main arteries: Virginia and Fourth streets.
Build up, not out, planners say. Create walkable, unique neighborhoods. Provide a variety of housing options and encourage people to live near their jobs. Improve public transportation and find a way to get residents to ride it.
That's the goal, at least. But will developers agree?
That remains to be seen.
Do we have 'smart growth'?
While Reno and Sparks eye additional land north of town as the primary region for new suburban-style development, the physical constraints of the valley are forcing planners to look for a smarter use of the land available within the McCarran Boulevard circle, a concept supported by the Truckee Meadows Regional Plan.
City officials, developers and residents will face those and other challenges as Reno shifts in the coming decades from a town that has been described as "the last remnant of the Wild West" into a more traditional urban form.
Steve Covec moved to Reno from the Bay Area about a year ago and hopes that one day Reno will develop into an urban environment more like the one he left, where he could easily hop on a bus and zip downtown from his home.
"I'm a big advocate of less driving and more commuter-based transportation for a number of reasons," said Covec, 29. "It's more environmentally responsible. We need to plan for the future."
He said he'd love to give up his car someday, riding transit to get somewhere far and walking when he needs to buy a quart of milk.
That vision is a popular one as cities across America are looking to the theories and principles of "new urbanism" and "smart growth" to help them shape urban renewal and new construction.
Those schools of thought promote the creation of the neighborhood as a small area that has just about anything residents would need for their daily lives, including grocery stores, schools, restaurants, entertainment and jobs.
Neighborhoods should have active streets full of wide sidewalks with lush landscaping and cafes. People should be able to walk to anything else in the neighborhood.
Such a design fosters a greater sense of place, belonging and community and reduces dependency on vehicles.
"I just feel like we've kind of reached the end of this suburban existence that we've preferred for so long," said Gloria Ohland, vice president of communications for Reconnecting America, an advocacy group for transit-oriented development with offices in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
"It's gotten to the point where it's too anonymous and too isolating. People like being around people."
Not everyone agrees. Tri Doan, a 45-year-old Double Diamond resident, said he loves living in the suburbs of south Reno.
Doan said he's worried that the additional construction could cause some dangerous traffic situations as more people move in, but said the benefits of the quiet suburban lifestyle far outweigh any traffic concerns.
"It's beautiful, wonderful," Doan said. "I've lived here over four years. It's a good living design, and that's really important."
While Reno officials acknowledge that many people like the suburban lifestyle, they often point to the downtown river district as the style of walkable, urban neighborhood they're looking to create in other parts of the city.
A couple can easily go downtown to shop, have dinner, see a movie and go for a walk in the park without having to get in their car between activities. For people living downtown, the lifestyle is made even sweeter by avoiding their car entirely.
Changes along Virginia and Fourth
It was not long ago Reno was a town of full of cow pastures and multiacre lots. Within five years those swaths of land have been converted into suburban homes, something planners call a perfectly acceptable lifestyle option that is compatible with a desirable urban form.
But as Reno planners look to the future, they're keeping their eyes sharply focused on the urban core and what they can do to create a smarter type of development. They hope to see clusters of sustainable neighborhoods lining Virginia and Fourth streets. The plans already are under way to make it happen.
They include sweeping changes to the city's zoning codes along the Virginia and Fourth street corridors. The changes include such things as prohibiting detached single-family homes, limiting such auto-related uses as repair shops and regulating things such as signs, fences and parking.
Coupled with the transit corridor designs are a series of master plans for specific parts of the city officials see as the prime locations for much more intense development, such as downtown, the University of Nevada, Reno and the burgeoning area around Mount Rose Highway and Virginia Street called the Redfield Regional Center.
Operating under the assumption that residents and visitors will be attracted to those neighborhoods for a variety of reasons, creating a public transportation system along the transit corridors will become paramount, and Reno and the Regional Transportation Commission are evaluating proposals to create a high-speed bus service along Virginia Street.
The key, however, lies with the neighborhoods.
By requiring wider sidewalks, making them more attractive and putting more people on them, the city hopes to create an urban atmosphere reminiscent of larger and older cities.
"If you put these corridors in there and intensify them, it's going to be a much more urban city than it's ever been," said Community Development Director John Hester.
That urbanism is in many ways a look to the past, when Reno grew around U.S. 395 (Virginia Street) and U.S. 40 (Fourth Street).
New urbanism is in many ways old urbanism, where cities were designed with public transportation systems like streetcars to get people from place to place before the car became a must-have possession.
John Norquist, the former mayor of Milwaukee and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism, said the reversion of cities to a more classic form is the natural backlash of the post-World Ward II sprawl that spread out across America.
"What's happening now is like recovering from a stroke," Norquist said about the urban struggle back from sprawl.
Zoning caused problems
A major part of that shift, Norquist said, is moving away from the zoning patterns that created sprawl in the first place, primarily separate use zoning. That zoning separated land uses from one another, requiring housing in one place and commercial in another, physically separating two things that are naturally co-dependent.
While separate use zoning was intended to clean up cities, having several uses on the same property is a time-tested form of creating walkable urban areas, Norquist said. Even some of Reno's Western nostalgia can fit that mold.
"The Old West has some strong urban images to it. Dodge City. The OK Corral. That's a Main Street there with Doc Holliday and Wyatt Erp living above the store. That's pretty urban," Norquist said.
Reno officials are hoping that same mixed-use development pattern they're encouraging might get a bunch of other Westerners living above the new stores that will make up the city's neighborhoods and thoroughfares.

[leftopolis]

double post

[jwaters943]

Here are some more random projects (most are described in detail at [URL="http://www.downtownmakeover.com"]http://www.downtownmakeover.com):

Mt. Rose Station Casino Resort next to The Summit Sierra Mall, scheduled to open in 2008/2009


Olympia Gaming's Resort & Spa located at The Legends at Sparks Marina shopping/entertainment complex, scheduled to open 2008/2009(couldn't find a better pic)


Peppermill Expansion under construction & scheduled for completion in 2007 (the parking garage, rear tower and area in back of the garage are all new)


This is the new Renown Health (formerly Washoe Medical Center) Patient Care Tower on the outer edge of downtown. I think it's a pretty nice looking small highrise (10 stories tall). This building is currently under construction and should be completed by the end of 2007.


Nevada Discovery Children's Museum:

http://www.nvdm.org/

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by jwaters943

I originally posted this in the Mountain West Forum, but someone suggested that I also post it here. Since Reno is quite close to the California/Nevada border I guess it makes sense some of you might be interested in development over here.

Yeah, you betcha!

For Tech Billionaire,
Move to Nevada
Proves Very Taxing
PeopleSoft Founder Fights
For $19 Million Refund
From State of California
By GEORGE ANDERS
July 17, 2006; Page A1
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. -- California software entrepreneur David Duffield arrived in this Lake Tahoe resort a decade ago with big plans. He spent $50 million on a lakeshore estate and started a Nevada property-development business. What's more, by taking a big chunk of his wealth to Nevada, Mr. Duffield expected to save millions on taxes.

Then California accused him of shuffling assets to evade taxes, sticking him with a $19 million tax bill -- one of the state's largest ever. The 65-year-old billionaire founder of PeopleSoft Inc. denies the charge and vows further appeals.

Scores of wealthy Californians "go Nevadan" each year, relocating to a neighboring state famous for its low taxes. Among the transplants are Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay Inc., and Andreas Bechtolsheim, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems Corp. But as Mr. Duffield's experience shows, what looks appealing on paper can prove far messier in real life.

Nevada transplants account for more than 20% of all tax disputes made public earlier this year by California tax authorities. Complex cases can take a decade or longer to sort out.

Brady Anderson, a native Californian who played center field for the Baltimore Orioles in the early 1990s, was dunned with a $322,410 California tax bill after claiming Nevada residency in 1993 and '94. The tax authorities "looked at where Brady was, every single day, and they subpoenaed credit-card receipts," recalled his accountant, Joseph Geier.

Mr. Anderson settled earlier this year, paying much but not all of the contested amount, Mr. Geier said. The defense focused on 1994, a year when he bought a sizable Nevada home. He didn't fare as well for 1993, when his residency claim was based on a rented Nevada apartment used in the off-season.

"If you come here from California, you can expect to be audited," said Peggy Taylor, a former PeopleSoft executive who prevailed in her own tax dispute after leaving the San Francisco area and moving to Incline Village in the late '90s. "Audits are winnable, but it's grueling."

Officials of California's Franchise Tax Board say they don't begrudge anyone the right to move to low-tax states. But they want to ensure that exiting Californians pay any taxes due on income or capital gains earned while in the state.

Mr. Duffield's Nevada saga started with a big party soon after PeopleSoft went public in 1992. He invited the company's entire work force, plus spouses, to an all-expenses-paid weekend at Lake Tahoe. "I decided on the spot: This could be a great vacation place. Let's go find a home," Mr. Duffield recently recalled. "My wife found one in Incline Village in a day. We signed the papers right away."

Mr. Duffield was in his early 50s then, and he had waited a long time to celebrate. As an electrical-engineering major at Cornell, he struggled to pay tuition in the early 1960s after his father died. His early jobs at International Business Machines Corp. involved constant travel. When he started PeopleSoft in 1987, cash was so tight he took a potentially ruinous mortgage on his home to raise funds.

PeopleSoft proved to be his big break. Customers loved its software for handling employee benefits and personnel records. When the Pleasanton, Calif., company went public, Mr. Duffield's 50% stake was worth more than $150 million.

Soon afterward, Mr. Duffield turned to PricewaterhouseCoopers for advice on diversifying his wealth in a tax-efficient way. In an Oct. 28, 1994, memo, three officials at the accounting firm spelled out a way he could set up a Nevada investment company funded with PeopleSoft stock. They said it could minimize taxes by being treated as one kind of corporation for federal tax purposes and another kind for California tax filings.

The accounting firm acknowledged under the "risk factors" section that California authorities might view the new company as "a scheme to avoid California income tax." Mr. Duffield wasn't deterred. "I didn't think this was out of the ordinary," he explained.

He set up Duffield Investment Group, a Nevada company funded with $65 million of PeopleSoft stock. Federal capital-gains tax wouldn't be due on those highly appreciated shares until the new company sold them. Nevada doesn't have a personal income tax. And if California signed off on the new company, it would be exempt from California taxes.

Mr. Duffield hired Nevada attorney Steve Grumer to snap up properties for the investment company to develop, including commercial sites in Reno and luxury residential property near Lake Tahoe. Its prize acquisition was a four-lot parcel, costing about $5 million, on the shores of Lake Tahoe, in Incline Village.

Mr. Duffield said the plan was to tear down the existing small houses and build something grander that a Silicon Valley tycoon or Hollywood mogul might want. When the 15,351-square-foot complex was nearly complete in 1998, it was listed for sale with Mr. Grumer's son-in-law, a real-estate agent, for $40 million. No firm offers emerged.

In March 1999, the Incline Village home finally did attract a high-tech titan: Mr. Duffield himself. He says he had decided to scale back his involvement at PeopleSoft and make Nevada his permanent home. So he bought the lake-shore property, paying $50 million for the estate and its contents.

Mr. Duffield says it was quite late in the process, during a weekend visit in 1997 or 1998, that he first considered buying his own project. "It definitely wasn't intended to be our house," he said. "It wasn't until I was standing on this unfinished dock, in a hard hat, checking on construction, that I suddenly realized: 'I could retire here.'"

California tax officials scoff at that account. They began auditing his finances in late 1997 and eventually decided the investment company was a self-dealing vehicle he used to dodge California capital-gains taxes on appreciated PeopleSoft stock that was sold after he transferred it to the company. The board concluded he owed California $7.2 million in back taxes on the sold stock.

In a July 2003 memo reviewing his situation, the tax board's hearing officer, Renel Sapiandante, wrote that Mr. Duffield "never intended to develop a residential project for investment purposes to sell to third parties." Instead, she asserted, he used Duffield Investment to build an estate for himself and dodge tax.

"I don't mind paying taxes. I've paid $260 million in taxes the past 15 years," Mr. Duffield said. As the inquiry continued, tax-board officials won access to old invoices, memos and planning documents associated with Duffield Investment -- now renamed Nevada Pacific Group -- as well as trading records from his Charles Schwab & Co. account. "It felt sneaky," Mr. Duffield complained.

The rest of his Nevada plans began losing momentum. He sacked Mr. Grumer over a real-estate-commission dispute. Many of the purchased lots were left unused as development plans languished. And the general contractor for the Incline Village mansion sued Mr. Duffield claiming he owed money for other mothballed projects. The suit eventually was settled for undisclosed terms.

Despite his troubles, Mr. Duffield had quickly become a popular figure after his 1999 move to Nevada, donating $1 million to help finance a private school, sponsoring a Beach Boys concert and helping fund squad cars, helicopters and boats for the police department. "He helped our community a lot and never wanted any recognition for it," said Washoe County, Nev., sheriff Dennis Balaam.

Mr. Duffield pumped $300 million into a charity, Maddie's Fund, that he created to help animal shelters find homes for stray cats and dogs, naming it for his miniature Schnauzer, which died in 1997.

California's tax board rejected Mr. Duffield's efforts to settle last year. Interest and penalties had swelled the state's original $7.2 million demand to $19 million. Mr. Duffield had to pay the entire bill after losing an appeal to California's Board of Equalization late in 2005. But he continues to press for a refund. If a refund isn't granted, he says, he will sue the tax board in California state court.

PeopleSoft in 2003 had become the target of a hostile takeover offer from a larger rival, Oracle Corp. As that battle played out, Mr. Duffield emerged from retirement to lead a doomed effort to keep his old company independent. When Oracle prevailed in early 2005, Mr. Duffield decided to launch a new software company, a decision that soon tugged him back to California.

"My adopted children are 6 to 12 years old," he said. "They haven't ever really seen me working. I don't think it's good for them to grow up with this sense that I just stay around the home all day."

Now Mr. Duffield works in Walnut Creek, Calif. -- within 10 miles of PeopleSoft's old offices -- seeking customers for Workday Inc., a business-software firm with about 60 employees. He is negotiating to build a new home in Alamo, Calif., near his new offices. Incline Village now is just a summer vacation home. "The winters were too cold for us anyway," Mr. Duffield said.

Write to George Anders at [email protected]1

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115309862745008285.html

[fflint]

Where's the medical center being built?

[EastBayHardCore]

Peppermill Expansion Webcams from their website.

Tower View


Surface View

[dimondpark]

BT,
Not too long ago, David Duffield was in the news for wanting to build a 70,000-80,000 sq ft house in Alamo, Contra Costa County. I hear the neighbors werent too pleased...still in approval stages from what I last heard.

Anyway,
Placer County to mull daily shuttle from Truckee to Reno airport

TRUCKEE-The Placer County Board of Supervisors is set to approve a daily shuttle service from Truckee to the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

The board meets to approve the measure on July 25th.

Resort and management associations from Truckee and North Lake Tahoe say the cost of ground transportation from the airport to the Tahoe-Truckee area discourages some travelers.

The cost could be anywhere from 50 to a hundred dollars per person one-way, not including tip.

The new shuttle service is proposed to cost 35 dollars per person one-way or 60 dollars round trip.

If the board approves of the proposal, service is likely to begin in October.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=5157128&nav=9qrx

Reno airport shuttle set to begin in fall
JOYCE SWANSON
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 7/11/2006

Getting to the Reno/Tahoe airport from Tahoe-Truckee might become easier and cheaper beginning this fall.

A plan to launch a daily shuttle service to the airport will go before the Placer County Board of Supervisors for approval on July 25. The creators of the shuttle proposal are the Truckee North Tahoe Transportation Management Association and the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association.

The current cost of ground transportation from the airport to the Tahoe-Truckee area discourages some travelers, said Steve Teshara, executive director of the resort association. A survey of currently available airport shuttle service found the least expensive price was $50 a person plus a 15 to 20 percent tip. Most services charged more than $100 a person for a one-way trip to or from the airport.

The proposed fee for the new service would be $35 a person one way or $60 round trip. Frequent user and group rates will be $50 per round trip and a family of five will be able to get round trip shuttle service for $100.

Teshara said the service likely will begin in mid to late October.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060711/TT/607110304/1047/NEWS

[dimondpark]

Planners reject Sparks casino
RYAN RANDAZZO
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 7/18/2006

Sparks planning officials denied a proposal Monday to build a hotel-casino on Pyramid Highway, sending the Lazy 8's fate to the city council and possibly court.

The Sparks Planning Commission denied developer Harvey Whittemore and Peppermill Casinos' $100 million plans for a resort, but the council can override the 4-3 commission vote.

"I'm confident city council will see the merits of our position," Whittemore said after the meeting. Nearby residents and other Sparks casino operators have opposed the Lazy 8. Some residents thanked the Planning Commission.

"I want to commend this commission," nearby resident John Bradbury said. "You had lots of studying to do."

Officials from John Ascuaga's Nugget also were happy with the decision.

"It is a very emotional issue -- people get upset," said Michonne Ascuaga, chief executive of the Nugget, adding her hotel-casino was not opposed to all new casinos in Sparks. "We're all about building tourism. What we want to stay focused on is the land-use issue."

Whittemore asserts the

1994 entitlement to build a casino at his Wingfield Springs

development east of Pyramid can be moved to Pyramid Highway south of La Posada Drive, where he plans to sell land to Peppermill for the development.

Commissioner Fred Lokken, a council candidate in Ward 3, made the motion to deny Lazy 8, and Thomas Lean, Mitch Nowicki and Kendall Mattina favored the motion. Scott Barnes, Jackie Peterson and Marvin Moss were opposed.

Lokken said no compelling reason exists to move the project from Wingfield Springs.

Not to be confused with the Lazy 5 Regional Park, the Lazy 8 project was proposed with an 18,000-square-foot casino, about the size of Gold Dust West in downtown Reno and larger than Tamarack Junction in south Reno.

The 20.5-acre project would include 200 hotel rooms, a movie theater, arcade, retail and restaurants.

Whittemore told commissioners the location was changed because Pyramid Highway can handle more traffic than Vista Boulevard. He said he still could build at Wingfield Springs if the council denies the Lazy 8.

"If it's denied and a court disagrees (with us), we'll be left building in Wingfield Springs," he said when Lean asked why he doesn't build the casino there.

Asked after the meeting if he was planning a lawsuit, Whittemore said he would pursue the best use of the entitlement.

Whittemore told commissioners he planned to donate his profits from the venture to the University of Nevada, Reno and that public comments on the Lazy 8 have offended him.

"I'm sick and tired of people saying it's about me -- it's not," he said to loud applause from the audience of about 150 people that seemed split between supporters and opponents of the Lazy 8.

Whittemore also has agreed to give the city $300,000 for affordable housing and is proposing to build a 4,800-square-foot community services building for the city. A lawyer working for John Ascuaga's Nugget said at a July 6 meeting the donation could be perceived as a bribe for the city's endorsement of the project.

"Are we going to find ourselves in a position where entitlements are for sale in the city of Sparks?" lawyer Doug Flowers asked commissioners then. "If people who bought houses five, 10 years ago read every public document, they would not have known it was possible to have a casino there."

Public comment was not scheduled before Monday's meeting because it was continued from July 6, when the public was allowed to speak before commissioners debated. The public was allowed to speak after the vote Monday.

Opponents have said the Lazy 8 would ruin their neighborhood and that Whittemore does not have the right to move his entitlement.

"If that is so, I could build a pig farm out there if it's not zoned for agricultural," nearby resident Shirley Bertschinger said.

"Build it in Wingfield Springs, but for god's sake, leave my neighborhood alone," resident Lynn Collins said.

At the previous meeting, Lokken made a motion to approve the resort without the casino, which was seconded by Lean. But Community Development Director Neil Krutz told the commissioners they would need to justify it.

Senior Planner Tim Thompson said Monday such justification could not be found in the law and encouraged the commission to approve the Lazy 8 request. He said also any denial should be of the entire request, not portions.

The city council was scheduled to meet with the city attorney Monday to discuss "threatened or potential" lawsuits, City Attorney Chester Adams said, but officials canceled the meeting.

Adams would not disclose the city's legal concern. The public and media would not be allowed in the meeting.

At the July 6 meeting, Leif Reid, lawyer for the developers, said a court would reverse the commission if it denied the casino.

"That sounds like a threat to me," Peterson said as some of the hundreds in attendance sneered in agreement.

[dimondpark]

East West breaking ground on Ritz Carlton

Posted: 7/18/2006

Special to Truckee Today

Developers will break ground this week on a new luxury Ritz-Carlton Hotel on the slopes at Northstar-at-Tahoe.

The 172-room Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe hotel is scheduled to open in late 2009 as part of a $300 million resort at Truckee with ski-in, ski-out town homes, condominiums, restaurants, swimming pools and a spa. The hotel will be modeled after upscale mountain lodges built in the West a century ago.

The developers have brought in a press junket this week to publicize the area's first five-star luxury resort. The visitors will be among the first to stay at the new Village at Northstar and will be touring East West Partners' other residential-resort properties at Gray's Crossing and Old Greenwood, which are being built under the umbrella name of Tahoe Mountain Resorts.

Ceremony Wednesday

The groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday will be attended by Bill Rhodes, senior vice president, The Ritz-Carlton Carlton Hotel Company; Denny Alberts, president and chief operating officer, Crescent Real Estate Equities Company; Harry Frampton III, founder and managing partner, East West Partners; Mark Hornberger, principal for design at Hornberger + Worstell Architects; Greg Faulkner of Faulkner Architects; and local dignitaries.

East West Partners, veteran developer of award-winning resorts at prime ski locations in Colorado and Utah, and its partner, Crescent Real Estate Equities Company, recently completed the first 100 slopeside luxury condos built at the base of Northstar-at-Tahoe Mountain ski resort. Starting this summer, the Village at Northstar's second development phase begins, which will total 213 condos ready for occupancy by the 2006-07 ski season.

'Destination resort'

The new hotel will be built with native granite and timber from the Sierra and feature steeply pitched roofs with shed dormers, sheltering porches and stone fireplaces in the lobby.

"It's a true destination resort in one of the prettiest areas on North America," Tom Dunlap, managing partner for the Colorado-based East West Partners, told reporters earlier this year when plans for the project were unveiled.

"It's located at about 7,200 feet where all the ski lifts depart from so you are right there in the heart of the mountain. You can literally ski from the hotel onto the lifts or back down the mountain to the hotel," he said.

The lead design architect said the hotel will differ from Ritz-Carlton's more traditional properties. Hornberger said it will be an upscale mountain lodge -- "a contemporary legacy of the great mountain lodges originally built in the West at the turn of the 20th century."

Besides the hotel, the resort will have 75 homes for sale and 77 other residences available as deeded time-shares.

The resort will border the 1,450-unit Highlands community that East West Partners and Crescent Real Estate Equities Co. are developing. It will have gondola access to the Village at Northstar, a collection of condominiums, shops, restaurants and ice skating rink at the base of the mountain.

Bruce Kranz, a member of the Placer County Board of Supervisors, said the developers have a strong track record of preserving the environment.

"The fantastic new complex at the Highlands will give the region not only a grand new hotel and increased luxury lodging and real estate options, but a host of new jobs, an increase in the tax base and a positive economic impact," Kranz said earlier this year.

The hotel will include 11,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 6,000-square-foot ballroom.

Old Greenwood is a 600-acre, year-round community that has sold 100 golf course home sites and has 159 fractional ownership residences.

Gray's Crossing covers 700 acres and will have shopping, dining, hotel lodging and single-family homes built around a private 18-hole golf course and club house. It's scheduled to be completed next summer.

The four communities, including The Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe, are being developed with recycled materials, low irrigation plant material and passive solar energy. Materials will include recycled steel, native granite and exposed wood, logs and lumber from the Sierra Tahoe region.

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060718/TT/607180313/1047/NEWS

[jwaters943]

Originally Posted by fflint

Where's the medical center being built?

It's being built at the site of their existing medical campus on Mill St. & Kirman Ave. Either way, it's much needed in order to keep up with the growing demand. In fact, St. Mary's (located in downtown) just finished a similar expansion 1-2 years ago. In any case, the new tower's architecture complements their smaller South Meadows facility, located near my home, quite nicely I'd say.

You can check construction progress on the new tower at:
http://www.oxblue.com/client/washoe/cam2/

Washoe Medical Center at South Meadows (for comparison):




Just FYI, the casino that was rejected in Sparks is not the same one that I listed above in case there was any confusion. The one at the Sparks Marina has support of nearby residents and The Nugget (Sparks' only major Hotel/Casino).