State OKs $539,350 grant for Gardnerville Station work

GARDNERVILLE — Work to renovate the former Condron Shell Station will begin this summer thanks to a $539,350 grant, Gardnerville officials said Wednesday.

While the site will eventually be a visitor information center, the real benefit to the town actually lies under the station.

Improvements will reduce flooding on Highway 395, keeping it open, and channeling storm water into the Hellwinkel Channel that opened last year.

Capturing storm water will also help the town’s Plan for Prosperity, which seeks to mix commercial and residential projects in the S-Curve.

Once completed, the station will feature a public meeting room, bus stop, electric vehicle charging station, ADA improvements, and signs describing the history of Gardnerville.

A mural inside the meeting room will portray the station with its original canopy and provide a history of the site and the station.

There also will be a display memorializing the East Fork and the Pyrenees hotels with materials from those structures.

In 2013, when the town took over the gas station after a failed tax sale, Town Manager Tom Dallaire said his plan was to complete the project entirely using grants.

Building improvement plans were prepared by Reno-based Dube Group Architecture and have been submitted to the county for a permit so work can start in summer.

There has been a gas station at the intersection of Main and Mission streets in Gardnerville since Bessie Gefeke opened the Traveler’s Service Station in 1928.

The gas station on the south end of Gardnerville was leased out in 1941 by the Gefekes and had several owners until Virgil Condron purchased it in 1958 and opened it as the South-Side Shell Service. Shell built a new station on the site in 1961.