Reno redevelopment worked for years to repopulate the derelict downtown district with a bevy of boutiques.Now people can eat, shop and amuse themselves at a wide selection of small business venues.
They can play, but they can't park, say downtown business owners.
And if parking's tight now, just wait until the planned condo projects fill.
"We've started a process to try and get our arms around parking for downtown in light of the planned condos," says John MacIntyre, project manager consultant with the City of Reno."We'll get somebody who specializes in municipal parking to pull this together."
Started three months ago, the plan should be finished this spring, says Gary Stockhoff, chief deputy director of public works."There's 8-to-5 parking, then there's evenings and weekends parking," he adds.
Meanwhile, city and county workers continue to cluster downtown.
City hall workers can park at the Cal-Neva parking garage.
County employees at the new court building under construction will rely on a new parking structure.
A one-acre garage earmarked for the three-acre site formerly occupied by the old Pioneer Inn will provide 500 to 700 parking spaces to serve employees at the new court building, the law library and the social services building at 350 Center St."It's our intent to take it to the board this summer," says Tom Gadd, public works director for Washoe County.
The Reno City Council must approve the parking structure.
People who work downtown fare better than those who play on the river.
"We knew we would not attract business downtown in terms of Riverwalk development without parking," says Lisa Newberg, management assistant for redevelopment." I like to think of the parking gallery as being the seed."
The 640-space parking gallery opened in 1993, followed by Century Theatres in 1999.
The parking garage costs $1.50 for the first hour, 75 cents for each additional half hour and $7.50 for 12 hours.Movie patrons get four free hours of parking per ticket.
"There's a lot of parking in our downtown, and it's free,"Newberg adds.
Most of the casinos offer free parking, and St.Mary's hospital has a 2,000-car garage.
"But people want to park right in front of the building they're going into or there's no parking," says Newberg.
However, customers of shops along the river might not have to compete with condo dwellers for shopping spots.
Housing in downtown Reno cannot be built unless developers provide parking on their property, says Newberg.
But not on the ground floor level.
The Palladio, for instance, will have parking on the second and third floors.
Downtown redevelopment efforts prompted a number of small business owners to take a chance on the river location.
But while the city's efforts added places to shop, it didn't add places to park.
Some merchants are satisfied with the parking.
The key: Location.
Location.
Location.
Silver Peak Restaurant and Brewery, for instance, is located right next door to the parking gallery.
"I believe it's adequate," says Trent Schmidt, co-owner."Only very seldom has it been filled.And, in bad weather, people can get to this venue directly from parking."
Others, like EJ's Jazz Cafe, are not so fortunate.
"There is no parking on this side of the river," says Judi Gardner, owner."Reno people aren't ready to walk."
She closed for lunch this winter because lack of parking, citing construction that closed Sierra Street.
"We had customers spending 15-20 minutes circling the block in search of parking," Gardner says.
Residents living above EJ's in the Riverside Artists Lofts take up spaces.
"And, in the evenings Pioneer Theatre takes up all the space for parking.
They stay for hours, as do our evening customers," she notes.
While the lunch crowd is pressed for time, browsers at 100 North Sierra Antiques and Art are not.
"Parking is a big factor," says Lena Black, owner."But people will make an effort for antiques and collectables.We get a lot of walkers from downtown.
People will go anywhere for antiques.
So if you get a place with tourists, you're OK.
I've been downtown for nine years now.
There's been days when there's not a parking place, but we get business."
However, says Black,"When the city says we want to make it pedestrian friendly, that means making it auto unfriendly.
People need to be introduced to that very slowly.We have sidewalks everywhere.
It's already pedestrian friendly."
"While most merchants pay to use the parking gallery, the theatre gets free parking," she adds."They can't make us subsidize the theatre.
The purpose of building parking was meant to develop down here.
The theatre came later.
There's been hundreds of businesses come and go.
Parking has always been our biggest challenge.We spend hundreds in parking for employees and vendors."
But the free four hours of parking that comes with a movie ticket is a good thing for Dharma Books.
'It helps us, being so close to the movies," says Tony Hall, co-owner."People have time left."
He notes that the average book browser stays about half an hour, However, says Hall,"We can always use more parking downtown.When Harry Potter opened, they ran out of room at the parking garage." That happens for lots of hit movies, says Jim Bell, chief executive officer of Sierra Adventures.
"It's a joke.At night, when it's free, it's a free-for-all," says Bell."The people who live here (over the stores) park at the meters.
They violate the loading zone."
The business rents kayaks and loads them onto shuttles for Truckee River float trips.
Sierra Adventure employees park down blocks away on Keystone Avenue and bicycle to the store, says Bell, who also rents bicycles to tourists, and put out his own bike racks.
"The city doesn't encourage efficient transportation," he says, citing a raft of complaints: Street signs say no bikes.
The bike lanes dump out onto Sierra Street, with a fast speed limit of 30 mph.
Grant money earmarked for bike lanes went to pay for street signs and fancy facades.
The parking garage can't accommodate high SUVs or vehicles with racks carrying kayaks.
Nearby diagonal meter parking tops out at two hours, too short for river floaters.
But it's fixable, Bell adds, suggesting an ordinance against feeding the meters (for allday parkers).
And, he wants the dead-end feeder street for the bus station turned into angle parking.
But what about those boutiques that directly front the river, with no street-front parking? "If they could park out front, we might get 50 percent more business, says Lily Laforce, co-owner of Parasols on the Riverwalk.
But she adds,"I don't know where they would put public parking.
There should be city parking.
The parking garage sometimes fills up."
