The long, ongoing saga of the Ormsby House

As far as anniversaries go, the passing of a decade since the Ormsby House closed for renovations came and went without much fanfare last October.

Owners Don Lehr and Al Fiegehen didn't make any statements about its future, and any activity on the inside continued to go unnoticed.

That's not to say things aren't happening within. The owners have been tinkering on the 10-story, 190,000-square-foot building since 2000, hiring a handful of contractors and filing 16 building permits with the city, including three that were rejected. They've made some strides in recent months, installing new electrical panels, boilers and air conditioning units. Stacks of drywall lie in all of the 600-square-foot hotel rooms.

Still, the project remains a monolith in the middle of Carson City, fenced off and without a firm deadline for a reopening. Even city officials say it's been months - or years - since they last spoke to Lehr or Fiegehen.

"I think everybody, they take bets on when the freeway is going to be completed to Spooner junction or the Ormsby House," said Guy Rocha, the former state archivist who lives in Carson City. "It's kind of become a standing joke."

He adds, "People at this point are highly skeptical if it's going to open, and if it does how many years from now? It's become a white elephant, really."

During a tour through the Ormsby House on Friday, Lehr said he is confident of the building's progress despite what he called - in salty terms - his ongoing battle with bringing the nearly 40-year-old building up to code and updating the building's infrastructure. He equates the entire experience with having his hand slammed in a door.

"This will happen," said Lehr, standing in the middle of one of the hotel's meeting rooms outlined by steel frames on the second floor. "There is no doubt."

The Ormsby House has maintained its gaming license by keeping the Winchester Club open under its parking garage off of Seventh Street - it's connected to the main building via skywalk. Meanwhile, the current building permit for the Ormsby House is set to expire in October, but a new one will likely be approved, said City Manager Larry Werner.

"In reality they can keep reapplying for permits for the next 100 years," he said.

'Talking about nothing'

John Anderson, the owner of the Carson City construction company that bears his name, was the first contractor hired on the Ormsby House in January 2000 to perform demolition work.

He said he was expecting a

$4 million job, but after five months on the site Anderson said the project was already stagnating.

"It wasn't headed in the direction we thought it would," Anderson said. "In my five months, there was an architect fired, there were a couple engineers hired and released. When you're running a job like that, everything needs to come together and keep rolling."

Anderson said Lehr and Fiegehen kept finding more and more things they wanted to correct, and eventually, "you better read the writing on the wall."

"When you take a building like that and you're meticulous like that, it takes a long time to put everything to completion," said Anderson, whose company dropped the project after six months and $100,000 worth of work.

He's still on friendly terms with Lehr and calls the project, "Don's baby."

Anderson also notes, "I think everybody gets tired of talking about nothing."

Could it survive?

Even if the Ormsby House could open tomorrow, would it want to?

It's no secret the gaming industry in Northern Nevada has suffered over the last couple of decades as tribal casinos in California siphoned the region's flow of tourist traffic. Coupled with a crippling recession and a record-high unemployment rate, local gamblers - the lifeblood of casinos in Carson City - are also keeping a tighter hold on their wallets.

It's something Lehr said he's aware of.

"If you have (a patron) come into your casino, you're taking away from his casino," Lehr said, adding, "I know people do want some gaming. Do you need 400, 500 or 600 slot machines? I don't think so."

Bill Eadington, the director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, said Lehr and Fiegehen probably have a good case to keep the Ormsby House shuttered considering the gaming market in Carson City.

"A strategy that they may be following that a lot of developers are following is why rush to open, especially if you don't have to," Eadington said.

And with other, newer casinos already attracting customers, including the Casino Fandango and Bodines, Eadington said the Ormsby House would face some stiff competition.

"It's not the best situation in the world; ideally you want to open into a market that's under-supplied," he said.

The question becomes, Eadington said, "Can the new owners figure out a way to make it more attractive? And that's really the challenge for the northern part of the state."

Rocha said the Ormsby House, if it opened, would amount to a Carson City version of Las Vegas' CityCenter.

"CityCenter was going to transform Las Vegas," Rocha said. "Well, guess what, it's struggling. On a much smaller scale, if the Ormsby House were to open, what is it going to do?"

Will it grow the market? Increase tourism in Carson City?

"How does the competition feel?" he said. "Is there room for one more casino in this town? I don't think so."

How much longer?

Werner said it's been about a year since he last spoke to Lehr when he called the city to ask about fixing an infestation of woodpeckers that had drilled softball-sized holes in the building's corbels.

"He was trying to find out a way to eradicate the woodpeckers," Werner said. "I said I'm not sure."

The city and the Ormsby House owners have butted heads over the years - Lehr and Fiegehen even threatened to demolish the building in 2003, citing problems over city regulations and requirements.

Of course a different history played out, and Lehr said he's had a positive working relationship with Werner.

"(Lehr is) treating this like he would treat how he and Al did their electronics business," said Werner, referring to the Cubix Corporation that Lehr and Fiegehen founded in Carson City. "He was hands on. When they developed their product it's because he meticulously figured out what things do. And he's trying to do that in the buildings industry to the point of selecting screws, toilets, light bulbs."

When the project first started Lehr and Fiegehen had interested buyers knocking on their door, but those calls have since faded away, according to Werner. He said any blame for the project's longevity on the city not giving Lehr and Fiegehen redevelopment funds also amounts to a "smoke screen."

"And I'm not sure if it would fit the bill, anyway," he said.

As for eminent domain? Werner said that's also out of the question.

"Even if it's an eyesore, that's not one of the things that fit into the category anymore," he said.

For now, a handful of men will continue working on the self-financed project that has eaten into Lehr's personal fortune (he didn't want to say how much he's spent, but said the figure has eight digits).

He said he expects the hotel's furnishings to arrive by June, adding he won't even think about starting on the casino floor until the ones above are completed.

When that may be, however, remains anyone's guess, even though it's a question Lehr said he gets incessantly.

"It's not that we like spending money," he said.