Jacobs Entertainment / Sands Casino has applied to have a block of Ralston Street Abandoned to help them complete their “Neon District”. The full application is HERE (Record Info / Attachments).
This would benefit no one but Jacobs and is in complete disregard of Reno’s Master Plan policy to maintain the existing street grid pattern.
Interesting tidbit from the Justification – Sands plans to convert 173 of their hotel units into rentals, and 10% of all units they develop will be “affordable”, though affordable isn’t defined.
Enough is enough.
REreno 
Steve Jobs said:
The links to the map aren’t resolving. I’m going to guess this is Ralston between 2nd and 4th? Or between 4th and 5th? I drive the stretch between 2nd and 4th weekly and it is really a distressed area of the city, and that is saying something.
Sara Lee said:
Link to the full-size image here:
geopower said:
the W 4th street district wasn’t great before Jacobs bought it up, but knocking down most of the buildings and making more parking lots isn’t the urban renewal anyone is looking for, let alone looking to donate public streets to. Maybe they should prove they can do development beyond repainting a motel before they ask the city to subsidize their grand designs.
808 said:
Hi, I enjoy reading your articles…. I have a question….I’m wondering if you might have any information about…….
what do you know about the city roaming the streets of midtown counting residential units per parcel and taking pictures of all of them because they think there are too many or maybe they begrudge some property owners for making good real estate investments…?? Seems like discrimination that if you own a property with two units on it, the city is perfectly fine with you, the property ownerc pocketing the income…. But… If that property has three units on it, the city demands that you register with the State, the dept. of taxation and the city because they are not fine with you pocketing the income…. Wondering if there has been any legal pushback from property owners regarding this……. Thanks Gloria
B said:
Jacobs bought the Town House Motor Lodge and is moving people out. More barely affordable housing goes away which means the encampment on 3rd street will grow. This will help their Sands business. They don’y seem to be doing much. They haven’t restarted construction on the Sands yet.
David said:
Now that Jacobs bought the Nelson Building on 2nd they have such a huge footprint of land. Larger than what Cathexes originally had planned for their W 2nd District. If this abandonment is approved it would make much of that land continuous which is basically unheard of in a downtown area.
I know they have ambitious plans, but it would be pretty disappointing if they’re unable to accomplish what they set out to do. While their hotel refurbishments have definitely been an improvement over what was standing before, it’s hardly exciting.
I wonder what happened with the trade between UNR and the historical society? That seemed liked such an ideal situation for both sides, and it would have been really cool to have that museum located downtown.