Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 13

Reno Gazette-Journal Sunday, March 15, 1992 13A Can businesses turn West Fourt OIll HltlhlA3V(ffi) River lnn Minera' Spa Silver Spur Motel 'sV UIM lligiliMMJtyj; Artistic Gardens JJ Dutch Wife Motel JrflM Hv1 Nude Furniture fH Johnny's Little Haly Restaurant bji vwTC''' Mahoney's Glory Hole Restaurant 3 1 Jacpine Motel TJ Tombstone Territory Motel j-x Mogul Lawton Siesta Motel MicasaToo iff 7JC f'1--TT V-v 2 Old 40 West Motel Q3 Sunset Motel Ef SU. HZ 8 Zephyr Motel El Tavern Motel rtt V' SJ WMwner Motel Silver State Lodge ij' jf RFNO rip- 40, ei nMjL vWH (Old ml: California Ave. TTTiM Fourth St. I 14 mile I I Jt1" FX I MayberryDr. From page 1 A but there's the potential to change that.

"We're working to keep the place clean and painted and looking good," he said. "A different appearance so it will attract more tourism to the area. We've still got a long way to go." Changing clientele is one way to help change the character of a property, Warsi said, especially in an area where the customers somewhat define the business climate. Warsi said helping tenants out when they have troubles is one way to make their lives more stable. ''Bring up their standard of living," he said.

"If the place they live in is clean, it changes their attitude." already are quite a few big restaurants out here and they like to have a decent area for their clientele," Warsi said. "If we keep the area clean, there's a lot of potential." Not everyone agrees. "I'd love to have tourists," said Johnny Cassinari, owner of Johnny's Little Italy, one of a handful of successful restaurants on West Fourth that cater primarily to local clientele. "About 97 percent of my business is local," he said. "The motels hold nothing for me; they're in such bad condition.

We're not on city water out here, we're on wells and septic tanks. Who's going to build something new out here?" Mark NowllrVGazene-Journal Cassinari said his business, like other tourism and leisure operations along West Fourth, dropped off with the opening of 1-80. "I travel a lot and I see main arteries in towns made into secondary roads," he said. "With time, they come back, but it takes time. As far as I'm concerned, my business came back.

The locals have been with me." But the motels were a different story. "To bring them up to better condition would cost a fortune and have 29 units and we keep them as clean as we can, and keep repairs done up." "I don't spend all my money upgrading furniture," she said. "But the mattresses are clean, the rugs are clean, there are no roaches." Venner has her rules and regulations for tenants and she keeps them posted on a large hand-printed sign in her office. If prospective tenants don't like what they see, she said, they're free to go somewhere else. and I don't want her to be ashamed to bring friends home." Since the completion of the freeway, Venner said, she's seen properties go from fairly nice to "what I call slum areas.

It's all due to poor management." Some of the properties, she said, have done a good job of cleaning up. Others, she said, should be forced by the city to change their ways. "If you want to attract good clientele, you have to have the place look good," Venncr said. "We "This is my home and I take pride in it. I have a young da ugh terandl don 't want her to be ashamed to bring friends home." Pat Venner then what have you got?" Cassinari said.

"If you clean up a little, it doesn't do anything. But to do something big costs a lot of money." Still, there are those who are determined to maintain respectable properties. Pat Venncr has owned the Tombstone Territory Motel for 20 years. "I don't do anything differently now than I did back then," she said. "This is my home and I take pride in it.

I have a young daughter JVJ Owners reviving River Inn Unfinished resort: Waiting for hook-up to city sewer, water. am Don MarquisGazelle Journal PARKING LOT PLAYGROUND: Four-year-old Mick Ochoa entertains himself outside the Dutch Wife Motel, where he lives with his family. I-80's opening started West Fourth's decline 15f HI i A i By Susan Skorupa AZETTE-JOl RNAL One big addition to West Fourth Street's business community has been sitting quietly for years, but could gear up again before long. Owners of the River Inn hot springs, an unfinished resort located on 20 acres of land west of MeCarran Boulevard on Fourth Street, are ready to begin construction of some new facilities as soon as municipal sewer service is extended into the area. In September, the Reno City Council approved the application of Westlake Development Co.

of San Mateo. for a special use permit for the property. The city also annexed the property so the complex could obtain city water. "We do have an interest in finishing the property, which is half built," said company spokesman William Chang. "Now, we're somewhat stymied waiting for the sewer." Once the sewer lines are connected with the property, Chang said, construction should begin on new lodging units.

The project is expected to take about 1 0 years for full completion at a cost of about S50 million. Included in the plans are 12,000 feet of casino space. 310 motel rooms, several restaurants and bars and a spa. The site of the River Inn was a popular natural hot springs before the turn of the century and was owned by Sumner Lee Laughton. Called Law ton's Hot Springs, it was a regular stop for train passengers.

From 1920 to 1957, the resort was mostly in the hands of the Mark Vori family. California investors bought the property in 1957, renamed it the Holiday Lodge and spent $1.5 million to reopen it in 1963. The property went through several other ownership changes before being purchased by San Francisco developer George Benny in 1 979. Benny planned to reopen the facility as Benny's River Palace, but was sentenced to prison in 1984 on charges of mail fraud and racketeering. Contractors then filed millions of dollars in liens against the property.

T.M. Chang bought the facility about 1 3 years ago. Don MarquisGazette Journal ly to weekly and monthly renters instead of tourists. "The Silver State Lodge with all those log cabins was a pretty impressive sight coming into Reno," recalled longtime Reno banker Ernie Martinelli of Valley Bank of Nevada. "Most businesses in that section of West Fourth did pretty well before 1-80 was built." The change began in 1973 when the I-80 Keystone exit was completed.

Keystone was the first exit east of the West Fourth motel strip and eastbound motorists found it a quick route into downtown. Many visitors using Keystone still found their way to the small West Fourth motels west of the exit, but businesses there feared the planned Virginia Street exit would cut traffic on Keystone from about 5,400 cars a day to about 2,700. "The change took a year or year and a half to be felt," said Pete Cladianos president of the Sands Hotel Casino. "About 60 percent of Reno's business is repeat and for many years, Fourth Street brought in the major amount of traffic to Reno." "People were used to coming in on West Fourth and staying in certain motels," he said. "At first, those repeat travelers would still get off the interstate at Fourth and look for their old motels.

But it began to deteriorate and new people, who had never stayed in those places, didn't know the difference." After a while, Cladianos said, even the longtime visitors found it easier to stay on the freeway and find lodging downtown. But the freeway was just one problem that conspired against the fortunes of West Fourth's tourism businesses, Cladianos said. Motels without the mas- "Leave Reno on First or Fourth street H.and go west. Dodge holes and ruts and climb the hill over Chalk BlulTon a narrow rough road. Follow along the blutTto Verdi.

Leave Verdi and climb the Dog Villey grade, and Lady Luck be with you. Nevada State Journal, Dec. 20, 1925, describing the roadway connecting Reno and Truckee before the construction ol VS. Highway 40. By Susan Skorupa GAZETTE-JOl RNAl.

For nearly 50 years, it was the lifeline that connected California tourists to the Biggest Little City. Motoring into town on U.S. Highway 40, visitors were drawn up West Fourth Street past a strip of motels and motor courts: the El Ruth Court, Sunset Auto Courts, Circle RB Lodge, the Zephyr. Pefore the burst of downtown hotels, Fourth Street motels and restaurants were the first recipients of the tourist dollars and the lodging places visitors remembered and returned to each year. But times change.

"It was a very congested part of town in the early days," said Frank Bender of Bender Warehousing. "It was the main highway. Many people still use it today to scoot the freeway and other traffic areas. It's a nice road, but it's not a main drag." In 1974, Interstate 80 opened and all those cars that once had funneled along West Fourth looking for lodging were car-fied around the little motel strip. Tourists Could still exit the highway west of town, but more and more often they headed for the bright lights at the center of town.

Today, the ones that remain cater most mi i nc oiuvcn orun; nne ror ine pnone torms uenina jonn wesiergara sive casino space of area hotel properties must depend on room rentals for all their revenue. The hotels with gaming can offer less costly rooms. West Fourth, he said, actually was a logical site for the development of a gaming strip, like Las Vegas, but geography worked against the idea. "I think it would have been difficult to accumulate enough property to talk about a casino," Cladianos said. "Fourth Street is wedged between the hills and the railroad tracks and river." City "red line" regulations also made development of hotel-casino properties outside the dow ntown area difficult.

At one time, however, gaming magnate William Harrah considered building an auto museum and hotel-casino on land he owned in the area of 1-80 and West MeCarran Boulevard, Martinelli said. "That would have been a catalyst," he said. Today, despite the growth occuring all around the West Fourth businesses, especially since the completion of the MeCarran ring road and strong housing development in northwest Reno, the area's future-is cloudy. Martinelli said more homes might provide a good market for new restaurants and related businesses in the area. But Cladianos disagreed.

"So many people who live out there use the freeway," he said. "They go around Fourth Street so that's not going to help businesses there much. You need traffic for retail and the traffic's not there." Story's not over for Old Highway 40 0 if 4 J. and renovate the property. "They're doing it by the way we all like to see it done," Rusk said.

"They bought it, they spent a lot of money and elbow grease to bring a higher standard. They're getting good rents. The area needed a facility that's looking good." But in the evolution of the area, some properties might be too far gone for renovation, Rusk noted. Those might one day be torn down and new businesses built to replace them. "If they're salvageable, somebody will do it," he said.

"There will be some new guy who will sec the potential for upgrading." Reno Mayor Pete Sferrazza says he expects some development in that area, particularly if the River Inn is completed. That casino-resort complex at the far west end of Fourth Street near Mogul has been closed for more than a decade, but the current owner could reopen the facility. "I would think that would help sonic of the lodging facilities in that area by at By Susan Skorupa GAZETTE-JOl RNAL There's a place for West Fourth Street in the greater developmental scheme of Reno and Washoe County. And, while the possibilities put forth by those in the knpw aren't exactly endless, they are at least interesting and feasible. That end of town has started to turn around," said Bob Rusk, local businessman and member of several community agencies.

"One major thing that has happened is the completion of the MeCarran btidge crossing." West Fourth was connected to the community as a whole last year with the com-plption of the MeCarran ring road. 3Qther plusscs. Rusk noted: Recreational vehicle storage facilities in the area are thriving; Nude Furniture on West Fourth is doing well. 'There's a future," he said. "Things hjjve turned around just since MeCarran was put in." West Fourth also has some of the best restaurants in Reno, he noted, and new housing is being built all around the neighborhood, particularly on adjoining MeCarran Boulevard.

"I would think in the near future that area will turn around," the mayor said. "And there's some movement already being made by some of the Future development of the river front also would make the area highly desirable for other kinds of business, he said. "In terms of tourism, there will be more in that area." Sferrazza said. "With improvement, I think it can still be viable. I see limited retail developing there, but not as a major retail center." The Reno City Planning Department says the street has not been mentioned as an area of concern in discussions with a citizens' advisory group for the area master plan.

There are several pockets of county land along Fourth Street between Keystone Avenue and MeCarran that arc proposed for annexation in 1996. Land-use proposals of the area, a plan- i Don MarquitGazelle Journal ROADSIDE PREACHER: With his dog Skulley, a man who wouldn't give his name waves his Bible at the passing traffic on West Fourth Street. ning department official explained, would homes with driveways, but does provide have to be compatible with a heavily trav- opportunities for a mixture of commer-) cled road. That rules cut single family cial land uses, the official said. He commended the efforts of the own tracting people to that area," Sferrazza said.

ers of the Silver State Lodge to remodel (ORIGINAL DEFECTIVE.