Reno’s New Era of Speculation

Data centers, arenas, convention centers, apartments, and so much more

So many plates are spinning in the world of Reno development right now—or at least in the world of potential development—that it can be difficult to know where to focus. From downtown to the “Reno Experience District,” from the Grand Sierra Resort to the North Valleys, it’s one heady proposal after another these days.

Despite the flurry of activity, however, there’s very little about the onslaught of projects and promises making the headlines that seems like a sure thing. Instead, each new idea seems to spur a barrage of additional questions:

• What’s the future of economic development in the region? Can Reno impose sensible regulations and expectations on new projects and industries while still sending the message that it’s “open for business?” Conversely, does being “open for business” mean approving every idea that comes along?

• What’s the future of tourism in Reno? Can the number of visitors from out of town be substantially increased, and if so, what would entice them? Major headliner concerts? Outdoor festivals? A bigger venue for college basketball? Professional hockey?

• What does downtown Reno truly need to turn it around? A calendar packed with special events? New convention facilities? A grocery store? Street-level retail? As many apartment units as possible?

• Do thousands of people want to live downtown, and if so, how much are they willing to spend to do it? Will proximity to permanent outdoor entertainment venues ultimately attract or repel them? How about all-night clubs? Is an “Entertainment District” ultimately compatible with residential living?

No matter how much data, analysis, and argumentation gets thrown around, ultimately the answer to all these questions is “nobody knows.”

Indeed, it seems to me that Reno has entered the “let’s throw everything against the wall and see what sticks” phase of revitalization and redevelopment.

Just this week, Reno City Council will be deliberating another appeal related to data centers, this time involving the Reno Planning Commission’s January 15 denial of a conditional use permit for the Oppidan Data Center in the North Valleys.

City Council will also (as the Redevelopment Agency Board) take a look at the preliminary analysis of the Grand Sierra Resort’s application for Tax Increment Financing (TIF) assistance for its Expansion and Arena Project, a request that would require extending the life of RDA 2 an additional 20 years. There’s a push for that one from some local heavy hitters:

• OPINION: Reno's next big move: the GSR redevelopment plan (Brian Sandoval and Beth Smith, Reno Gazette-Journal, 3/3/25)

City Council will also be deciding whether to initiate a text amendment to the development code to encourage yet more premature demolition of structures even without plans to construct something on the cleared site—in my opinion, one of Reno’s most destructive and self-defeating anti-development patterns. (That’s Item E.1 on the Reno City Council agenda; I’ll have more on that below)

The most recent serial practitioner of that strategy, Jeff Jacobs, just made a public appearance touting some new concepts (we’re no longer calling them “plans”) to revitalize downtown Reno, claiming he can make downtown a popular regional tourist destination once again by attracting Californians there with concerts and new convention facilities, and at the same time transform West 2nd Street, the northern section of the historic Powning’s Addition, into “Reno’s Park Avenue.”

And we just learned that one of the most highly touted businesses to have opened in downtown Reno in recent years, Uncle Junkee, will soon be closing its location in the old Woolworth’s building across Virginia Street from City Hall and joining the original Junkee at Reno Public Market, way down at South Virginia & Plumb Lane:

• Uncle Junkee vintage store closing downtown, moving into Reno Public Market (Ariel Smith, Reno Gazette-Journal, 3/7/25)

Does this bode poorly for any new retail downtown? They certainly wouldn’t be moving out if sales were going well. Just a few years ago, that section of downtown housed multiple antique stores and art galleries, so if a secondhand variety store can’t make it down there any longer, what kinds of retail do we think possibly could?

It’s a lot to take in. And although occasionally dimmed by such daunting realities, Reno’s fervor for speculation has been largely consistent throughout our city’s history. In fact, one could argue that speculating on future consumer and economic demand without retaining hold of a consistent vision has been Reno’s modus operandi.

But speculation is not without its consequences, as Reno well knows.

To speculate is to gamble on the possibility of success despite obvious risks. And if those potential risks are only to the speculator, then the danger can at least seem contained. But in the world of physical land development, that’s not how it works. Everything is interconnected, and one choice can have spiraling repercussions—not just for the immediate environment but for the broader economy, tax base, and future prospects. The decision to move boldly in one direction, after all, can often permanently eliminate the potential to pursue an alternative path.

The risk of unanticipated consequences is amplified when your ideas are big, bold, unprecedented and relatively untested in the market, like, for instance, arenas and inner-city festival grounds and power-hungry data centers dotting the landscape.

These kinds of developments aren’t just responding to a demonstrated demand, but in some cases are actually hoping to CREATE demand for something altogether new.

Added to that, many speculative initiatives are largely driven by another powerful and not always benign force: competition.

That competition might be with other national markets like the drive to attract data centers, which are rapidly proliferating throughout the United States.

It might mean competing with neighboring states, like trying to persuade residents of Sacramento or the San Francisco Bay Area to drive over the Sierra to visit Reno for entertainment rather than spending their money closer to home.

Or the focus of that competition can be somewhere within the Reno market itself. Our local gaming corporations may play nice on the boards of the RSCVA or the Downtown Reno Partnership, but when it comes right down to it, they’re competing for the same customers. After all, a head can only be in one bed at a time.

That’s true for apartments, too, where property owners compete not just with rents but location and amenities. How big is the market, really? Would the construction of thousands of new units at the RED spell doom for any hopes of attracting tenants to upscale properties downtown? Are there enough prospective affluent renters to go around? Does affordable housing literally “trickle down”? Who knows?

The spectre of competition can breed many things—a sense of urgency (sometimes manufactured), a tendency toward exaggeration of potential benefit and a playing down of perceived risks, major investments in publicity, promotion, and lobbying—none of which are particularly conducive to informed, rational decision-making. And then there’s always the prospect of collateral damage.

An insatiable appetite for speculation has long been Reno’s Achilles heel, as its titillating promises satisfy that longstanding civic desperation to finally be saved, reinvented, stable, to finally be winning. But rose-colored glasses can easily become blinders if we allow ourselves to get carried away.

There’s an alternative to rampant speculation, of course, and it may not sound sexy or thrilling. It doesn’t involve talk of billion-dollar investments or celebrity headliners. It’s just straightforward, methodical, realistic, everyday urban planning, driven by the ongoing assessment of needs and the formulation of strategies to meet them.

Hotel-casinos and casino resorts—the sources of some of our region’s most speculative propositions—are themselves urban anomalies that stand apart from the traditional urban fabric, as I’ve discussed at length before.

In contrast, the prescription for transformative urban development in dense, mixed-use neighborhoods follows some predictable, standard rules. Line open public spaces and streets with ground-level development that fills them with ongoing activity. Develop incrementally, favoring multiple storefronts over long monolithic walls. Weave together a variety of uses that collectively spur activity at all times of day. Promote density at every opportunity. Stop designing for cars. Ask residents what they want to see and then work together on a realistic plan to achieve it.

For outlying areas, successful planning also requires comprehensive coordination and evaluation of both short- and long-term causes and effects.

So why this litany? Is this simply a screed against speculation, against risk-taking, against taking a chance on big, bold ideas? No. But let’s just call it a word of historically-derived caution. There’s a lot of money in speculation, and with big risk can come big reward. But when speculative schemes fail, they can fail big. The key is to think critically about what’s being promised and by whom, and evaluating to the greatest extent possible all potential repercussions, both positive and negative, approaching each proposal with a healthy degree of skepticism, and never assuming that the shiny apple being dangled in front of you will provide the long-term sustenance you (or your city) actually need.

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So what’s on tap this week?

The full schedule of all nine City of Reno public meetings, with agendas and supporting materials, can be found here. They include the Financial Advisory Board, Historical Resources Commission, Civil Service Commission, and more. I’ll just be highlighting a few items on Wednesday’s Reno City Council and Redevelopment Agency Board agendas and then moving on to some updates.

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PREVIEW: March 12, 2025 Reno City Council meeting

You can find the full agenda for Wednesday’s Reno City Council meeting here, so please be sure to skim through it for items of interest to you. The RDA Board generally convenes after the conclusion of the Council meeting, but we won’t know for sure until they approve the order of the agenda that morning.

I want to highlight two items in particular from the City Council meeting. The first is the initiation of a text amendment related to sewer connection fee credits, and the second is an appeal of a data center denial.

E.1 - Eliminating the five-year expiration date for sewer connection fee credits

If approved, Item E.1 would be the first reading of an ordinance amending the Reno Municipal Code related to Sewer Connection Fee Credits. Stay with me here.

I wrote about these credits at length back in May 2021 in a Brief called “Of Sewer Fees and Empty Spaces.” The item under consideration at that time was later removed from the agenda, but City Council was set to extend the deadline for a property owner to use sewer connection fee credits for a demolished building if that developer had entered into a Development Agreement with the City.

As I explained back then, any new residential, commercial, or industrial construction project has to pay a sewer connection fee in order “to reserve sewer capacity for treatment and conveyance.” If a building burns down or is intentionally demolished, the owner of that parcel gets sewer connection fee credits that can be applied toward the cost of the sewer connections for a new structure to be constructed on the same parcel or an immediately contiguous one. Currently those credits have to be “spent” within five years or they expire.

I was and remain opposed to extending this deadline beyond five years for any structure that is deliberately demolished without an immediate plan to construct something in its place. That happens all too often in Reno, where sometimes downtrodden yet perfectly adaptable structures are demolished by an entity that simply wants them out of the way—to “start with a clean canvas,” so to speak.

The Staff Report for this item to be discussed on Wednesday argues that the five-year deadline should be eliminated because a number of “economic conditions, such as the delayed recovery from the Great Recession, COVID, rising interest rates and construction costs as well as shifts in local and national economic conditions” have meant that “many of the properties with credits were not able to be developed in the timeframe prior to the credits expiring,” and that their expiration has “created a disincentive for property owners to clean up their blighted properties and utilize those sewer connection fees to redevelop land for housing projects within the City.”

Those factors may indeed explain why some of those credits expired. But what greatly worries me is the wording that appears later in the Staff Report:

“Removing the sewer connection fee credits expiration dates would help to provide another incentive to clean up the properties by encouraging demolition of blighted buildings and would provide a financial incentive for new development to occur within our key areas, many of these being in downtown.”

We’re going to have to talk about precisely what constitutes “blighted” here, because I suspect many people have vastly different opinions of what constitutes “blight” and what makes a building “past its useful life,” a term used elsewhere in the report.

A building is not blighted because it is not in good shape. A building is not even blighted because it is not up to code. And it’s certainly not blighted because it doesn’t fit someone’s perception of the “highest and best use” of a parcel.

Property ownership can be temporary, but demolition is permanent. Premature demolition without an immediate plan for new construction on a site should never be encouraged because plans often change, parcels sell, property owners change their minds or run out of money. But if a property is demolished, its potential for creative repurposing disappears forever, making a pre-emptively cleared site more likely to remain vacant indefinitely due to the high costs of new construction.

Discussion of this agenda item is going to have to get very specific to convince me that this is anything but a terrible idea. Precisely who would benefit from this? If it’s retroactive, then obviously Jacobs Entertainment has a surfeit of properties whose sewer fee connection credits have already expired or soon will, due to all the motels they have demolished. But has that company failed to build anything on the sites of those motels due to the high costs of construction, or because they haven’t yet decided what they want to build there, prioritizing property acquisition over planning?

When it comes to demolition, what’s done is done. But “blight” is not only often in the eye of the beholder but is also highly problematic from a historical perspective, and the encouragement of premature demolition without a meticulous explanation of what warrants it is not, in my opinion, responsible land use policy.

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The second item I want to highlight on Wednesday’s Council agenda is an appeal.

I.1 - Appeal of the Planning Commission’s decision to deny a request for a conditional use permit for the Oppidan 5MW Data Center.

The approximately seven-acre site for this proposed data center is located on the north side of North Virginia Street, about 2500 feet east of its intersection with Stead Boulevard, in the North Valleys. As the Staff Report indicates, the Planning Commission “was unable to make the findings related to availability of public services and facilities to serve the project and granting the CUP not being materially detrimental to public health, safety, or welfare.”

For their part, says the report, “the applicant appealed on the basis of the Planning Commission’s decision being arbitrary and capricious while failing to adhere to the established criteria and findings required under the Reno Municipal Code.” You may recall that this was the topic of a rather troubling recent Council discussion about the role of the Master Plan in developmental decision-making.

This appeal comes hot on the heels of City Council’s tied (and therefore failed) vote on whether to initiate a deliberative and public process to formulate new standards to govern the approval and operation of data centers, something I see This is Reno just published an editorial on yesterday, pointing out Mayor Schieve’s decisive role:

• EDITORIAL: Reno City Council opts for speed over transparency in data center decision (Kristen Hackbarth and Bob Conrad, This is Reno, 3/9/25)

An array of associated materials for this item, including the minutes and Staff Report from the Planning Commission meeting, can be accessed via the agenda.

And Reno Planning Commissioner Manny Becerra has just published a new piece on the subject, “Shaping Reno’s Future: A Balanced Approach to Data Centers,” in which he concludes, “Reno’s growth shouldn’t be a gamble.” I couldn’t agree more.

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Selected additional March 12 Reno City Council items

I’ll provide links to the Staff Reports for each item below, but remember that there are often multiple attachments for each item, all accessible via the agenda.

• B.9 - Approval of an Amendment to the Franchise Agreement (Shared Mobility) between Bird and the City of Reno, to extend the term of the agreement until April 13, 2027. Staff Report here.

• C.1 - ABN25-00002 (Record Street Partial Abandonment) Request for the abandonment of ±9,222 sq. ft of public right-of-way south of the intersection of East 4th Street & Record Street. As the Staff Report states, “The partial abandonment of Record Street was anticipated and included as part of the sale of the 315 and 335 Record Street properties...”

• D.5 - Update, discussion & potential direction to staff regarding proposed legislation at the current Session of the Nevada Legislature. Staff Report here.

• D.7 - Presentation & potential acceptance of the Downtown Reno Partnership's FY 2026 Downtown Reno Business Improvement District Operating Plan, Budget, and Annual Assessment Rate Adjustment. Staff Report here.

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PREVIEW: March 12, 2025 Reno Redevelopment Agency Board meeting

You can find the full agenda for the Redevelopment Agency Board here. Reno City Council, convening as this board, will primarily be discussing the fundamentals of Tax Increment Financing in general (under Item B.2) and then, under Item B.3, reviewing the initial market analysis report on their very first TIF application, for the Grand Sierra Resort Expansion and Arena Project and deciding whether to “proceed with financial gap analysis and deal negotiations.” Staff is recommending that they do.

The Staff Report for this item, complete with a summary of the proposal and an explanation of its implications is here, and you can view the 110-page market analysis report here. As staff explains, “The next step in the review process is conducting a financial gap analysis, which will determine the extent to which public assistance is required for the project to be financially feasible.” That would do the following:

• Evaluate total project costs, including construction, infrastructure, and operations

• Assess available private funding, financing options, and expected revenue streams

• Identify any shortfall that prevents the project from proceeding without public support

If you’re interested in watching the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board’s discussion of this application, you can watch their February 21 meeting online here.

To comment on any items on the March 12 Reno City Council or Redevelopment Agency Board agendas, you can deliver comments in person or virtually by registering here. Comments can also be delivered in advance by submitting public comment via Reno.Gov/PublicComment; by emailing Publiccomment@reno.gov; or by leaving a voicemail at 775-393-4499.

Comments must be received by 4pm every Tuesday to be provided to Council in advance of their Wednesday meetings. You can also find Councilmembers’ individual email addresses in my Citizen Guide.

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NEWS DIGEST: The latest in local urban development

The past week brought a flurry of local development-related coverage, in addition to the links provided above. If you haven’t yet done so, I strongly urge you to subscribe to This is Reno. Their coverage of City government is comprehensive and essential.

More reports from the February 26, 2025 Reno City Council meeting

• Reno City Council votes against creating data center standards (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 3/3/25)

• Reno Fire Prevention Bureau audit finds noncompliance issues, again (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 3/4/25)

• Fatal crashes lead Reno City Council to consider public shaming, harsher punishments for speeders (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 3/4/25)

• City to hire consultant for East Fourth Street Historic District nomination (This is Reno, 3/5/25)

On the City of Reno’s Current Budget Shortfall

The City Council and Redevelopment Agency Board held budget workshops on March 5, prompting a number of articles:

• Reno council approves selling or leasing 23 properties to generate $13 million (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 3/5/25)

• City of Reno projects $24M budget deficit as sales tax revenues remain flat (Ben Margiott, News 4 Reno, 3/6/25)

• Reno council warns of cuts to bridge $24 million shortfall in 2026 (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 3/6/25)

• Reno City Council considers service cuts to address massive budget shortfall (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 3/9/25) - this one is especially detailed, reporting on individual Councilmembers’ statements and positions.

Miscellaneous Recent Development-Related Articles

• EDITORIAL: Our local leadership vacuum (Kristen Hackbarth and Bob Conrad, This is Reno, 3/2/25)

• What's going on with Reno's Idlewild Park? Why is the park closed off, and for how long? (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 3/4/25)

• Facing growing pains, Sparks looks toward a possible toll road (Richard Bednarski, Nevada Independent, 3/5/25)

• Lakeridge residents push back against proposed apartment complex in neighborhood (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 3/6/25)

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The Latest from Jacobs Entertainment

Lastly, Jeff Jacobs appeared on Nevada Newsmakers this past week to provide a little update on what his company has been doing and might do next. I encourage you to watch the full videos, where you’ll learn that having opened his new 60-unit apartment building (initially planned as condos), one of his next projects will be to construct a conference center (two stories over a parking garage) just west of the current J Resort hotel-casino. He’s very focused on attracting Californians, it seems, and if there seems to be enough demand from California visitors, he might increase the number of his hotel’s rooms from 700 to 2,000. If there seems to be a demand for more housing, he might build more of that.

Mr. Jacobs says he doesn’t know just what he’ll ultimately do with “the other side of Fourth Street” (where the company demolished multiple motels and replaced them with surface parking lots) but maybe something related to outdoor youth sports? Volleyball tournaments? He apparently has a “Master Plan” for multiple scenarios (which, correct me if I’m wrong, means there’s not actually a “Master Plan” at all).

Development of the Bonanza Inn (which he says he would take down to the studs and rebuild as 50 units of workforce housing, on a parcel that’s zoned for practically unlimited height with no requirements for parking) is part of the next three-year plan. And notably, although he once stated that he was not a residential developer and would be relying on outside developers to construct any housing, he’s no longer even offering for sale the two parcels he had previously offered to other developers—one on West 5th Street and the other that would combine the Chevron parcel on the SE corner of Keystone and West 4th with the parcel to its east and the other just to its south (290 Keystone) that Jacobs bought from the City of Reno for $631,600 in February 2022. (That deal, by the way, legally required Jacobs to apply for a building permit within 18 months of the close of sale and construct something there within 48 months. That’s more than three years ago and the site remains vacant with no plan.)

Apparently, Mr. Jacobs says, outside residential developers were having a hard time making projects on those two sites “pencil,” which makes me wonder exactly how much he was trying to sell them for and under what terms. I was also struck by his comment that when he started out, he thought there would be about 2,000 apartments “in the area,” noting approvingly that they’re “well underway,” but referring primarily to all the apartments constructed, under construction, and planned by other developers along West 2nd Street and north of West 5th Street, apartments that have nothing to do with him or his projects. Just as a reminder, the City’s Development Agreement with Jacobs stated that “The District will include the construction of 2,000-3,000 residential units.” So now he’s implying that he wasn’t referring to housing units built on his own land, but just the number that he thought would eventually be built on the west side of downtown by somebody, sometime? Or maybe not?

That’s the problem with the City having allowed its Development Agreement with Jacobs to include a map labelling the entire expanse between West 2nd Street and Interstate 80 as “the District” even though City staff later admitted that there was no such thing—something Jacobs’ company apparently acknowledged when changing their trademarked brand from a district to “J Resort’s Reno Neon Line,” described vaguely as “a revitalized vision of West 4th Street and the surrounding area.”

Keep it vague, brand first, plan later—it doesn’t get much more speculative than that.

Here’s Part One of that interview:

and Part Two:

Have a great week, everyone.

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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.

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