New year to mark opening of Washington Street Station in former theater/casino

Washington Street Center, the retail and office center gestating in the half century-old shell of the Carson Cinema movie theater, should be finished by January.

Design Optics will move in January from the Frontier Plaza to the front of the building's first floor, while leases were approved Wednesday for office space two state agencies - the director's offices for the Department of Museums, Library and Arts and the Nevada Arts Council - will move into about half the upstairs office space between Christmas and New Years.

"We're feeling pretty privileged with the proximity of the arts council and museum department's offices to the Nevada State Museum and its new annex," arts council executive director Susan Boskoff said. "This will serve as the entry to the cultural corridor that's developing in downtown Carson City with the new museum annex, the state museum itself and on to the Brewery Arts Center."

"Entry to the cultural corridor" is a heady description for the building last known as the Golden Spike Casino, which sat vacant since 1985 and was scorned as one of downtown's worst eyesores.

However, the design renderings hanging from the fence in front of the project show an attractive building with a Old West flavor accented by awnings.

Current owners John Serpa Jr. and Tom Johnson, who formed Cinema Development Group LLC to revitalize the building, are developing the property bought by John Serpa Sr. and Jim Bawden at auction about 11 years ago.

"This originally was a movie theater, built in the late 1940s or early '50s, and it closed about 1975 or '76," Johnson said. "Then it was the Golden Spike Casino, until that closed about 1985."

When the elder Serpa and Bawden acquired it, the slot machines and other furnishings were still inside and they remained there while former Carson City Redevelopment Director Mary Walker pressed for the building to be redeveloped or demolished. In 1997, Serpa Sr. bought out Bawden's interest and soon signed the property over to Serpa Jr.

The old casino marquee was pulled down and asbestos was removed. A $100,000 commitment of redevelopment funds was sought and eventually received. Even the floors were pulled up when the building was gutted to a shell.

"Except for a storeroom full of slot machines, we didn't keep anything from the casino," Johnson said.

"This will be the main entrance. It's going to be beautiful and have a nice coffered ceiling," Johnson said, sweeping his arm across an area still only a shell of steel studs, plywood steps and exposed wiring. But the interior finish work is going quickly now, compared to the gutting and replacement of the floors, wiring and plumbing.

The younger Serpa was busy last week making final decisions on the exterior colors for the building, comparing swatches of white, bone, beige, brown, gray and green painted on the fresh stucco. Sample awnings hang above two windows, but Johnson said another awning design was chosen.

Now that leases are signed, the workers are building to meet the future occupants' needs. A good example is in the Nevada Arts Council offices, where the reception area features a large curved wall that will be used for gallery space.

"Besides curving the wall, we're walling it with a wood material so they'll be able to fasten the artwork they display in a changing gallery," Johnson said.

The state offices will have computer network wiring installed within their walls to state specifications. And access for the disabled is provided in the restroom design and an elevator.

Downstairs, the back 2,700 feet is set up to accommodate a restaurant.

"We've already installed a grease trap in the plumbing and the kitchen would go against the south wall," Johnson said. "They have entries off the main entrance and Curry Street. And we made the sidewalk on Curry Street wider than required for pedestrians so a restaurant could have table service outside if it wanted."

No tenant has been signed for the restaurant space yet, though negotiations have taken place. "We're looking for someone who wants to be here as badly as we want them here," Johnson said.

Dave Mello is one business owner who definitely wants to be in Washington Street Station. Design Optics, his eyeglass and contact lenses dispensary, has been located at the north end of Frontier Plaza since 1978.

"I've looked at moving downtown for a long time. I wanted to be in the traditional part of Carson City and that's downtown," Mello said.

"The location we'll have is great. Our customers will be able to walk over and visit the museum while they wait for their glasses.

"And the new store will be beautiful, with hardwood floors, lots of glass blocks and our own old-fashioned soda fountain. Jeffrey Berning is going to run that, greeting our customers and offering them coffee or a soda. It's all about making the customers comfortable."

Leasing nearly 3,000 square feet also means Design Optics can join forces with Dr. Shane Williamson, who will bring in his ophthalmology practice. Williamson's services include cataract surgery, "Lasik" laser eye surgery medical eye exams and treatment of glaucoma as well as general ophthalmology, Mello said.

"We'll be the most complete optical services center south of Reno, the only one to offer 90- minute service on eyeglasses including multi-focal lenses," said Mello, who has owned Design Optics since 1982 and is past president of the Nevada Board of Dispensing Opticians.

About 3,000 square feet of the main floor between Design Optics and the restaurant space is available for lease as one or two spaces, Johnson said.

The five-year leases for the arts council will provide some long-term stability for that agency, Boskoff said.

"This will be our fourth move in seven years," she said. "Until 1993 we were in Reno, then we moved to the State Library and Archives for about a year.

"Then we moved to a 1,400-square-foot office at Curry and Robinson, but we quickly outgrew that space. In fact, I'm now a block farther north, in the same office the Department of Museums, Library and Arts is using, while the rest of the arts council is down the street."

When the council is reunited in Washington Square Station, the gallery in the new reception area will offer a changing display of the works of various artists with whom the council works.

The Nevada folk arts archives that the council has been developing and computerizing will get its own work area, including a public access terminal, she said.

"That's a new initiative that will take some time to really allow it to be used fully," Boskoff said. "We've got hundreds of hours of oral interviews and thousands of photographs we're organizing. The public will be able to use it without climbing over cardboard boxes."

And a conference room to be shared with the Department of Museums, Library and Arts will allow the arts council and its staff to meet. Meeting space for the groups has had to be borrowed elsewhere, she said.

The Department of Museums, Library and Arts five-person administrative staff will have about 1,800 square feet upstairs in Washington Street Station, administrative services officer Scott Sisco said. They will move from a converted home just across Curry Street that the state received when it bought the former First Interstate Bank Branch next to the state museum that is being converted into a museum annex.

Once Department of Museums, Library and Arts Director Michael Hillerby and his staff are set up in Washington Street Station, the Curry Street office they leave will be occupied by the administration for the Division of Museums and History, Sisco said.

"The division's offices are shoe horned into the state museum now, with the director's office off an exhibit space and his staff in a corner of the gift shop storeroom," Sisco said. "The museum will get that space back for exhibits."

JS Devco, the Serpa's father-son development company, will also move to the second floor.

Despite the litany of tenants, Johnson said some space upstairs is still available for lease.