Goodbye FIrst Interstate Bank, welcome Nevada State Museum annex

The brick arch came down Wednesday as a former bank building started its transformation into an annex for the Nevada State Museum.

The long-empty First Interstate Bank building lost not only its arch but also the four feet of brick wainscotting at the bottom of the exterior walls.

Bison Construction has 120 days to create a 2,200-square-foot gallery space in the front third of the building and add a second story to the rear section, said Mark Falconer, the state museum's facilities supervisors.

Hopes are to have a temporary exhibit up and ready inside the annex by early February. Tentatively called "Selections from our Collections," this show will feature works not on display from the museum's five collections: natural history, history, earth science, anthropology and clothing and textiles, said museum director Jim Barmore.

"I am so pleased to see work under way next door," Barmore said. "We're so anxious to get into that space."

Along with stripping the exteriors, crews will cut windows are for a new upstairs section that will have a work room for researchers and a climate-controlled storage area for the history collections.

"Today they're removing all the '60s-looking brick and they're hoping to start saw-cutting windows," Falconer said.

Sanding and stucco work for the new exterior will fill the next couple weeks and work on a new roof will start Sept. 7.

The bank's brick archway will give way to a portico similar to but smaller than the portico at the main entrance of the former U.S. Mint next door, which houses the state museum. The design will also replicate the sandstone facade of the mint on the lowest portions of the bank walls.

The state acquired the bank property for $1.375 million in November 1997. First National Bank, later First Interstate Bank, built the structure in 1959 and it has stood empty since 1993.

The $475,000 Bison Construction contract includes all walls, plastering and painting as well as building a second floor and the exterior work. A separate $250,000 contract yet to be signed will take care of mechanical, plumbing and electrical work.

Western Single Ply will give the FIB building a new roof as part of a contract involving roofs at three state buildings.

The entire museum construction should cost nearly $1 million, Falconer said.

The first major exhibition for the annex is called "Under One Sky," an exploration of the history of Native American history in Nevada from 11,000 years ago to today. The exhibit is penciled in for an October 2001 opening.