Brief Digest: March 9, 2024
Downtown Micromobility, the future of Wingfield Park and the National Bowling Stadium & more
When I committed to publishing weekly Briefs, my assumption was that I’d have less material to cover each time. Joke’s on me! It seems that there’s more than ever going on, most of it not being covered by any other outlet. So let’s jump right in.
As always, be sure to consult the City of Reno’s Current and Upcoming Meetings page for topics of interest to you; in addition to those I’ll discuss here, they include meetings of the Wards 1 and 5 Neighborhood Advisory Boards, the Public Art Committee, Historical Resources Commission, Financial Advisory Board, and more.
March 13 Reno City Council Meeting
Reno City Council meets on Wednesday, March 13, and I recommend that you take a moment to scan the full agenda. I’ll highlight a few items related to development.
Items C.1, C.2, and C.3 will consider Master Plan and zoning map amendments associated with Planning Case LDC24-00020. The site is at the corner of Mill and Greg Streets, just south of the Grand Sierra Resort’s lake, and according to the project application, would enable the Illumined Arms Retail and Gunsmithing Shop located there to construct an “upscale indoor gun range” on the adjacent parcel. The Planning Commission is recommending denial of the applications. You can find the Planning Commission’s December 7, 2023 staff report and minutes under Item C.1.
Items C.4 and C.5 would add two more properties to the City’s Register of Historic Places, which is truly exciting. The Arts & Culture division and Historical Resources Commission are on a roll with these. Please contact them to inquire about adding your property to the city’s historic register.
Downtown Micromobility & other Street Projects
Item D. 2 on Wednesday’s Council agenda would approve a Interlocal Cooperative Agreement to allow RTC Washoe to conduct maintenance plus four major projects:
The West Fourth Street Safety Project (from West McCarran to Vine)
The Moya Boulevard Widening Project
The Sixth Street for All Project
The Downtown Micromobility Project.
You can read more about all of these in the Staff Report and a recent post from Downtown Makeover. This item will move the Downtown Reno Micromobility Project into the design phase, kicking off a process of public participation and analysis that would result in a completed design by November 2025. You can consult the City’s project website for more detailed info on the concepts they sought input about last summer. Notably, the Center Street Cycle Track, which I wrote about repeatedly, is not included in the plan, but a lot of other streets are, spanning all the way from Holcomb Avenue on the south to University Terrace on the north.
Eyes on the Capital Projects Surcharge Advisory Committee
Does anyone else feel like the City needs to have a focused public discussion about the future of the National Bowling Stadium? The NBS (for short) obviously will continue to host bowling tournaments, but special events aside, most of the time it sits vacant and still, contributing no activity or sense of safety to the surrounding environment. Its fortress-like appearance with very few entrances certainly doesn’t help.
Most discussions of this behemoth of a building as well as the adjacent Reno Events Center begin with one obscure public body, the Capital Projects Surcharge Advisory Committee, which meets on Tuesday, March 12 at 2:30 pm. You can attend via Zoom by registering here. There is no hyperlink to that agenda, so I’m including a PDF below with Tuesday’s agenda and the minutes from their December 2023 meeting, which covered a lot of ground about the committee’s role and ongoing concerns.
I discussed this committee’s role in commissioning a mural for the NBS exterior back in February 2023 in “When a mural is more than a mural.” As you might recall, Mayor Schieve was adamant that the mural depict images other than bowling in order to help convey her vision of it as a multipurpose facility for use by the community and especially by UNR. As I’ve reported before, she made an earlier pitch in 2022 to rename the NBS the “Wolf Pack Bowl” and make it a home for Esports, although no such UNR connection existed (or exists, to my knowledge).
It became clear that someone had been working on that whole UNR-Esports idea last June, when this committee was set to review a proposal to partner with UNR to create an Esports center on the building’s first floor, as reported by Downtown Makeover (with images). The item was pulled from the agenda back then, but is now back on Tuesday’s agenda as an information item.
So here’s where I want to talk about PROCESS.
The National Bowling Stadium is a City-owned building, and most seem to agree that its use needs to be augmented to better serve the community and help in downtown revitalization. But who gets to decide what that future will be? The Mayor? This committee of three Councilmembers and two downtown casino executives?
I understand that this is just an advisory committee, but they have the power to direct City staff to explore various ideas and lay the groundwork for plans that could be well underway before heading to the full City Council for approval.
Does anyone else besides members of this committee get to suggest ideas for the future of this public building, and if so, to whom? There’s a whole open area underneath the building’s south side that they just had to expend funds to secure with fencing. When can we have a public discussion about whether to permanently enclose the southern portion for some viable and active use?
Every single City-owned building and public space in the downtown area needs to be working overtime to generate activity at all times, not just some of the time for niche groups. What impact would the adaptation of any of this facility for Esports have on the surrounding area? Could some other potential use have even more?
And I wonder, too, as downtown’s landscape has shifted, does the current constitution of this committee and disposition of room surcharges still make sense?
If you take a look at the minutes in that PDF I included above, you’ll also note past discussion of raising the room surcharge fee as well as multiple references to Mayor Schieve (who was not in attendance) having some kind of new vision (even a repurposing?) of the Reno Arch:
“Member Reese said the concept of spending money on other things had arisen in two contexts that were relevant to the committee. The first was questions about costs, refurbishment, redesign, or repurposing of the Reno Arch….He thought the Reno Arch and the downtown streetscape were a priority for Mayor Hillary Schieve….Member Reese…was unsure of the costs related to the items, but he heard the undertaking of the Reno Arch would be expensive….Member Reese moved to approve staff recommendations, with the caveat that in the future staff look at including the Reno Arch and downtown streetscapes in the capital budgets.”
For anyone interested in the future of downtown, I think this committee warrants a lot more attention. If you read through their December minutes, feel free to send me your thoughts on them, and If you watch Tuesday’s meeting, let me know your thoughts on that, too. And for those who serve on this committee, please consider how to facilitate open public discussions of the future of the National Bowling Stadium, Reno Events Center, and the Reno Arch in venues where the public can easily participate in them.
The future of Wingfield Park & others
Continuing on the theme of downtown Reno assets, you may have responded to recent calls for input on the future design of several City parks including Wingfield and Barbara Bennett parks in the heart of downtown.
This past week, the City of Reno’s social media accounts posted links to online surveys on the future of those parks plus Teglia’s Paradise Park, stating that “after evaluating initial feedback, the Parks and Rec. Dept. determined we actually didn't get that much feedback and need more community input before moving forward!”
Online surveys about these three City parks are open through March 15. The survey for Teglia’s Paradise Park, found here, is very straightforward, asking for input on who uses the park and how they feel about its various components.
But the survey on Wingfield Park and Barbara Bennett Park, found here, is something very different. The online survey itself is found on the first page, along with a link that takes the viewer to extremely detailed layouts of three different Concept Plans that it asks respondents to review and compare.
I’m fortunate enough to have two computer screens, which allows me to keep the survey on one screen and the drawings on the other one, but the drawings are so detailed that I’m still having a hard time discerning the differences between them. And each one is dotted with numbers and letters that correspond to three different legends. Photographs of some of these features are included even further down.
To give you an idea, here’s an image of just one of the concepts.
I have to assume that these images were designed to be printed out as enormous panels to be viewed in person, with a real live human being explaining all of their components to the viewer, because slapping them online and directing residents to “take a few minutes” to interpret and compare them seems a lot to ask. The survey includes a phone number to call for assistance with the survey, but I think that’s simply not adequate. This whole approach needs some serious reconsideration.
Wingfield and Barbara Bennett parks function as Reno’s Central Park. They are used by an incredibly broad cross-section of Reno residents (and tourists), and their future design should be as collaborative and interactive as possible. I’m talking in-person events at the parks themselves with refreshments and games where everyone is invited to view images of potential new features and to discuss in detail with staff and consultants how various options would transform these popular central landscapes.
I do want to encourage you to take all of these surveys. But if you agree that the City should take steps to involve more people in this process, please let the Parks and Recreation staff and City Council know. The Recreation and Parks Director is Nathan Ullyot and the City Council liaison to the Recreation and Parks Commission is Ward 3 Councilmember Miguel Martinez. Let’s make sure everyone gets a fair shot at shaping the future of these beloved public spaces.
Reno Public Art Survey
Another City department seeking input is the Arts and Culture Division, with an online survey about public art. You can access that one here. The City is currently updating its public art master plan, and as the office states, “We are interested in hearing from people who live in or work in the city about how you think public art can make Reno a better place to live, work or visit.”
The survey includes a helpful definition of public art:
Public art, in its most basic definition, is art in public spaces. While the term may evoke images of bronze statues, today public art can be much more – in Reno you can find sculptures of all types in parks, plazas and roundabouts; murals; artistic streetscape elements; painted utility boxes. What all these kinds of public art have in common is that they are free and accessible for everyone's enjoyment and inspiration, and altogether they provide a unique way of experiencing Reno.
Well said. The online Public Art survey will be available until April 20, 2024.
Reno City Charter Committee update
And now for an update from this past week. As I previewed last week, the Reno City Charter Committee met last Monday and continued to review the components of the City Charter in advance of suggesting potential amendments to City Council (which could vote to forward them to the State Legislature, where any changes are made).
Some of the most robust discussion focused on how to fill a City Council seat that is vacated mid-term. As it stands, City Council can choose either to appoint a replacement or to authorize an election to fill a vacancy, no matter how much of the departing councilmember’s term remains. So far it looks like there’s an appetite in the committee for requiring a special election to be held (rather than an appointment) if there is more than six months of the term remaining. Six months was just a suggestion at this point, and committee members asked staff to provide more information to them in April about potential repercussions and logistics.
The use of appointments to fill vacant Council seats has been escalating recently. As a reminder, former Ward 5 Councilmember Neoma Jardon resigned in August 2022 with more than two years of her term remaining. City Council appointed her replacement, Kathleen Taylor in September 2022. Former Ward 3 Councilmember Oscar Delgado resigned in September 2022, again with more than two years remaining of his term, and City Council appointed Miguel Martinez to fill his seat.
And the At-Large council seat (which will be discontinued as of November 2024) has been filled repeatedly by appointments. David Bobzien was appointed to replace Hillary Schieve upon her election to Mayor in November 2014. Bobzien served the second half (two years) of her term and then was elected to the At-Large council seat in 2016. But he resigned in January 2019 and Council appointed Devon Reese to serve out the remaining 20+ months of Bobzien’s term. Reese was elected in November 2020.
The Charter Committee meets again in early April and I’ll pass along that date, agenda, and Zoom link once they’re posted.
The Races Are On for Reno City Council
We’re one week into the two-week filing period for Reno City Council candidates. You can view the latest filings on the City’s website and ongoing coverage from The Nevada Independent and Reno Gazette-Journal. Interested in running? It’s not too late!
Feel free to refer back to my March 2 Brief and my Citizen Guide for more information on the new City ward boundaries, which are in effect for the purposes of the current Reno City Council election cycle and will go into full effect for all other purposes after the general election in November.
A Little Historical Interlude
I was delighted this week to participate in the dedication of the first round of 14 historic plaques that were installed on commercial buildings throughout MidTown. I was hired by the City of Reno and RTC Washoe several years ago to research and write all the text for these plaques as well as to coordinate their installation. Here’s a little Channel 2 piece on the project and this week’s dedication. Thanks so much to all who were involved in this project—I think historical plaques add so much to a community, and the stories they tell can help strengthen our connection not just to the places we share but to each other.
Lastly, I just want to extend my deep gratitude to all my subscribers and especially to those who have made the choice to upgrade to a paid monthly, annual, or founding subscription. Your financial support makes it possible for me to dedicate my time and energy to keeping you informed of the activities and actions that shape our city. Your paid support also allows me to keep each weekly edition of The Barber Brief free to all readers so that no one is left out of these important conversations.
Be sure to check out my Citizen Guide for helpful resources and links for anyone hoping to become more informed and engaged in issues related to urban development (& more) in Reno.
As always, you can view this and prior newsletters on my Substack site, subscribe to receive each new edition in your email inbox, and follow the Brief (and contribute to the ongoing conversation) on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. If you feel inspired to contribute to my efforts, sign up for a paid subscription through my Substack site or contribute to my Venmo account at @Dr-Alicia-Barber or via check to Alicia Barber at P.O. Box 11955, Reno, NV 89510. Thanks so much for reading, and have a great week.
Are the Midtown plaque locations and information posted anywhere?
According to my reading, Staff and the Planning Commission recommend approval of the Illumined Arms project.