How confident are John Masquelier
and Kelly Pratt about their Redfield
Suites, a south-Reno complex that will
combine apartments, retail space and
offices?
Confident enough that they're undertaking
the project without much numbercrunching
market analysis.
Instead, they're relying on centuries of
European history in which many shop
owners traditionally have lived upstairs
from their ground-floor businesses as
well as the apparent hunger of Reno entrepreneurs
for affordable space for tiny businesses.
Construction will be under way before
the end of the year on the first two units at
Redfield Suites. The project is on Redfield
Parkway, just west of the Reno-Sparks
Convention Center.
When it's finished, the project will
include at least seven and perhaps eight
two-story buildings.
Each building will include space for
500-square-foot offices or stores on the
ground floor along with a 500-square-foot
garage. The upper floors will be developed
into 1,000-square-foot apartments.
Each of the buildings will have space
for four live-work units.
(The decision whether the project will
include seven or eight buildings depends
on the mix of office and retail uses desired
by tenants, Pratt said last week. More retail
use demands that more space be devoted
to parking.)
Pratt said she and Masquelier expect
that demand for the units will come from
entrepreneurs who don't want to open
their homes for businesses yet desire to live
close to their work.
They hope, too, that the project's location
within easy walking distance of the
busy commercial district around South
Virginia Street and McCarran Boulevard
will draw residential tenants who want
something of the feel of big-city living.
Pratt said the developers known corporately
as Redfield Suites also expect
that lease rates around $1 a square foot
will prove attractive to small firms who
have struggled to find affordable space in
retail developments.
While Masquelier and Pratt are pitching
the project as a place where tenants
can work close to their home, Redfield
Suites will be built as shells that can be
finished to meet tenant specifications. It's
not impossible, for instance, that one of
the units could be finished as an 8,000-
square-foot office building leased by a single
tenant.
The neighborhood commercial zoning
on the 2.5-acre parcel requires that the
street level be developed as commercial or
office space; the developer has greater flexibility
on the second floor.
Pratt said the first two units will be
ready for leasing and tenant finish by late
February or early March. The development
firm plans to build in phases of two units
each.
The site work will involve removal of
parking lots finished when the property
once was proposed for retail development.
