Downtown retail a priority

Downtown redevelopment was the hot topic at last week's Directions 2003 event, the latest in a series of annual conferences held to discuss economic and business issues facing the Reno-Sparks area.

Revitalizing Reno's downtown - and not bigger and better gaming - is the way to combat the threats to the area's tourism industry, said Phil Satre, chairman of the board at Harrah's Entertainment.

"The key is to improve the quality and extent of the tourism product," said Satre during a speech at the conference in Reno.

And the key to that, said Satre, is continuing development of the Truckee River river front and retail expansion downtown as outlined in the so-called Cordish Plan.

The Cordish Plan was developed by the Cordish Co., a Baltimore-based real estate developer that specializes in entertainment and mixed-use projects.

The plan was delivered to the Reno City Council in June 2000.

The plan covers about 35 blocks, from the Truckee River to Eighth Street, and from Ralston to Evans, and includes an events center, a retail-entertainment district, a science complex, a performing arts center and a pedestrian promenade built on top of the train trench.

Cordish originally planned to develop the project, but the company first wanted construction started on the train trench and the events center, which took a long time to receive approval from the city council.

"[Blake Cordish] is no longer involved," said Doreen Soto, economic development manager, Reno Development Authority.

"He was interested in working on the retail but he wanted the events center going first.

That's under way now." Soto said the events center should be completed in two years, assuming its design documents are finalized in May and construction begins in early 2004.

"The Cordish Plan is in limbo right now," said Harry York, chief executive officer of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce in Reno.

"They hired Cordish to do the plan and the next step was for him to develop it but he held off because he wanted the ReTRAC and downtown events center started before he would commit.

The other big snag was he wanted the city to acquire a bunch of the land and sell it back to him, but the RDA doesn't have that kind of money." "But that doesn't mean the city can't take that plan and start working on it, block by block," said York.

Five months ago the RDA hired Tom Outland, who had managed Reno's Macy's for 17 years, to work on a plan to develop retail, residential and office space in downtown Reno.

"We're still putting the pieces together, but we want a major footprint," said Outland, economic development manager at the RDA.

"We're looking at between 250,000 and 500,000 square feet." Outland said he's in the process of discussing the evolving concept for downtown with local business people and leaders and will soon present it to elected officials to get their endorsement.

In four or five months he expects to go public with a plan for redeveloping downtown.

Will it follow the Cordish Plan? "The Cordish Plan works," said Outland.

"But it's not the only possibility for putting retail, loft residential and office between the events center and the casinos."