Veggie void

Reno's downtown looks to redevelopment to bring in condo dwellers by the thousands, and city officials foresee ground-floor retail to host all the personal services those people will require from hair salons to shoe repair.

All the services but one.

And no matter how numerous they become, those downtown dwellers are unlikely to get it a grocery store.

That's the conclusion of a retail study conducted by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Geography is one reason, says Frederick Steinman, urban economic development liaison.

A supermarket, with a 1 percent profit margin, needs a 100,000- to 150,000-square-foot store to survive, he says. It needs the pharmacy, bakery and now, even the gas station. It needs a family of four to buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries each month. And to support all that, it needs a parking lot with 300 to 400 parking spaces.

Downtown ain't got it and won't get it, because downtown redevelopment is going for a pedestrian-friendly layout. And a pedestrian an't carry a week's worth of groceries for a family of four.

Over the past decade, development in the Truckee Meadows has resulted in a curious disconnect of residential to the north as far north as Spanish Springs and retail to the south.

Despite that embedded customer base in the north, when Whole Foods decided to enter the Reno market, it chose a location at South Virginia and Neil Road within a stone's throw of competitors Wild Oats Market and Trader Joes. Why?

"It's much easier to go where people are used to shopping rather than advertise to change their habits," says Steinman. "You just wind up throwing a lot of money at it."

Even with the most unlikely of optimistic projections, he adds, figuring all the condo developments fill up, and each unit houses three residents, downtown demographics still won't meet the minimum population densities that supermarkets look for within one square mile of the store.

The retail report says that in 2005, downtown Reno's total population in the downtown redevelopment district was only 3,291. By 2008 however, given the existing downtown residential projects, the most optimistic estimates predict that downtown Reno's total population will grow to 7,647.

This is simply not enough of a population to support a full-scale grocery store, considering that the average one-mile population for such stores as Albertson's and Raley's are 16,720 and 11,570 people, respectively.

And never mind that those retirees and empty nesters won't ever need the brimming shopping carts that suburbanites fill to feed families with children. As they age, they'll eat less, not more.

But what about all those thousands of tourists who visit Reno?

According to a 2000 Travel Industry of America Association report, it takes between 30 and 35 tourists to equal the grocery buying power of one full-time resident. On the flip side though, downtown would potentially be capable of supporting a smaller Trader Joe's type of specialty store.

Specialty groceries can survive on a smaller clientele base, so can charge higher margins. There is a niche downtown for more places like specialty grocer Fresh Marketplace, says Steinman.

And that place, he says, is West Street, "the untapped gem of downtown Reno.

"It's off everybody's radar screen," he notes. But not for long, because, "There's a lot of opportunity for new condo projects with retail on the bottom."

A few artsy pioneers have already staked out spots in that neighborhood, between First and Second streets. North of that, the old casinos Comstock, Golden Phoenix, Kings Inn and Sundowner are being converted to condos.

However, he adds, while trendy Beaujolais Bistro, G Spot, Liquid Lounge and Green Room have anchored the south end of West Street, the connection between Saint Mary's and the Riverwalk has not yet been clarified.