New owners launch leasing push on downtown building

Thinking how to reposition the office building at 300 E. 2nd St that they'd just bought, Chris Croisdale and Mark Litman started with some paint.

The building renamed as Water Front Plaza includes nearly 1,000 parking spaces in a nine-story garage it was built as a parking garage by Harrah's but many folks forget the 135,000 square feet of office space on the building's top four floors.

The answer by Litman and Croisdale, California investors whose TRT LLC bought the building: Paint the exterior of the top four floors white to differentiate them from the parking garage.

They've been busy with the paintbrushes on the building's interior, too.

Crews have finished renovation of the building's public areas, sprucing up hallways, restrooms and elevators among other projects. On the drawing boards is a new fa ade, and the owners are looking at improvements such as riverfront plaza seating or a kayak entry point to the nearby Truckee River.

"We'd like to see it brought up from a C-class building to something closer to an A-class building," Croisdale said last week.

With the interior and exterior improvements near completion, the building's owners are stepping up their push to get the building fully leased. It's about 20 percent vacant currently.

"It's hard to lease a building when the hallways are torn up," Croisdale said.

He said the owners and their leasing agent, Alliance Commercial, are talking with a major nonprofit that might take some of the space. Talks also are under way with the operator of a coffee house for the building's first floor, which has been remodeled to allow a breakfast-and-lunch cafe.

Leasing targets, Croisdale said, include companies that require large amounts of employee parking.

The Call Center is a major tenant of the building, and Croisdale said other call centers would fit well. Other firms that have large numbers of employees on-site mortgage companies, for instance also are leasing targets.

Along with The Call Center, current tenants of the building include Washoe County, State of Nevada, Artown, High Sierra Communica-tions, Next Media, KRZQ Radio and Harrah's.