Updates & Previews: Week of June 10, 2024

Reno City Council, an RFP for the Record Street properties, and more

You can find next week’s entire calendar of Current and Upcoming Meetings here. I’ll list them by day first and then highlight a few items on some of their agendas below:

• Monday, 6/10: Public Art Committee, Reno City Charter Committee, Ward 1 NAB

• Tuesday, 6/11: Senior Citizen Advisory Committee, Historical Resources Commission, Ward 5 NAB

• Wednesday, 6/12: Reno City Council

• Thursday 6/13: Civil Service Commission, Financial Advisory Board

Some items that jumped out at me include the following:

• The Public Art Committee (6/10) will be discussing calls for artists for two exterior public art installations at the new Public Safety Center in amounts not to exceed $200,000 and $175,000.

• The Reno City Charter Committee (6/10) will be discussing and potentially approving its Final Report to present to Reno City Council at their concurrent meeting scheduled for July 29, 2024. Among the recommended changes are a requirement that “Council declare, by resolution, a special election to fill a vacancy on the Council if there are more than 180 days until the next general municipal election.”

• The Historical Resources Commission (6/11) will receive a progress report on a Historic Survey and Inventory of East 4^th Street in preparation for a potential Historic District Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. They will also review text for seven new historic markers.

• The Ward 5 NAB (6/11) will get a presentation on “noise and bass levels generated from activity including live entertainment, bars, special events, concerns, and crowds” by Angela Fuss, Assistant Director of Development Services.

And of course, Tuesday, June 11 is Primary Election Day, so if you have not yet voted, be sure to either postmark your mail-in ballot by June 11 or vote in person on Tuesday. For the Reno City Council races, refer back to my 2024 Primary Election Guide which includes links to candidate websites and interviews with News4 and the Reno Gazette-Journal, and also visit the RGJ Opinions Page for links to op-eds by and about local candidates.

We are likely to see some results from those elections by Wednesday’s City Council meeting, which I’ll preview in a moment after some coverage of the previous one.

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Updates on the June 5 City Council meeting

This is Reno published two reports on the June 5 Council meeting, with another follow-up article posted just yesterday.

On Item D.1: Improvements to the Truckee River corridor along Riverside Drive

“City council approves $2.1 million for river improvements” (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 6/7/24). Here’s an excerpt:

“Reno City Council members on Wednesday approved $2.1 million for river projects despite frustrations over the focus area. The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars must be allocated to contracts by the end of the year, and projects must be completed by the end of 2026…. The majority of the ARPA funds — $1.56 million — will go toward Riverside Drive park design and lighting. The park project is focused between Arlington and Booth streets.” 

Discussion of the project area produced some friction surrounding the chosen location. To quote the article again:

“[Amy] Pennington said they’re focusing on this area because of the flood wall requirement. ‘If we’re not involved [in the design], we might end up with them building something that takes away all of these improvements,’ Pennington said. Schieve said that even if the flood management authority is requiring a flood wall, she’ll ‘believe it when she sees it’ because the authority ‘hasn’t done a damn thing.’” 

Those statements prompted a response from the Truckee River Flood Management Authority Executive Director George Robison, as reported by This is Reno yesterday in “Flood Management Authority disputes city staff, mayor’s comments about flood project” (Bob Conrad, This is Reno, 6/8/24). There, Robison says this:

“We want to correct the record on the council meeting,” he told This Is Reno. “First of all, the Truckee River Flood Management Authority has no authority to actually require Reno to build a flood wall, nor were we advocating them to have to build a flood wall. That was another entity that was doing that, and that was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”

Robison goes on to explain the roles played by the different agencies with respect to the river,  at one point stating, “I don’t think the city staff informed the electeds properly on what was going on, and so [council members and the mayor] were reacting to, making statements about and voting on something without proper information.” 

That, of course, would not be good, so we’ll see if there’s more discussion of that in the future. This is Reno also reported on another item from the June 5 City Council meeting: the recruitment process for a new City Manager.

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On Item D.2: Recruitment and selection of a new City Manager

“Reno City Council begins process to replace city manager” (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 6/6/24). As the article reports:

“Council members weighed in on what they would like to see from a new city manager. The consensus was to find someone who would live in Reno, become a part of the community and have previous experience as a city manager….[hiring firm Vice President Gary] Phillips added that council members should refrain from suggesting that the final candidate would be local or publicly praising interim manager staff, as those are both signs to out-of-state candidates that their chances at the job are slim. He said that can affect the candidate pool.”

On a related note, the selection of an Interim City Manager is on this week’s Council agenda (see Item D.4 below).

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June 12 Reno City Council Meeting

The agenda for the June 12 Reno City Council meeting can be found here, so be sure to skim through it for items of interest to you. It’s a packed agenda, and there are several items related to development that I’d like to highlight.

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C.1 - Allocating grants related to the 2024 to 2025 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Annual Action Plan.

As the Staff Report explains, “These funds [totaling approximately $3.5M] are combined with other financial and human resources to support various community development and housing activities that benefit low- to moderate-income households.”

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C.2, C.3, C.4, C.5 - Annexing Valley View Estates into the City of Reno and approving related Master Plan and zoning map amendments.

The area is approximately 81 acres located just east of the TMWA reservoir tank (in the Wildland-Urban Interface behind Damonte Ranch High School), as shown in the above map. You can read the Staff Report for Item C.2 here and access all other related documents from the online agenda.

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C.6 – A request to rezone the site west of the terminus of Riverside Drive from MF-30 to Specific Plan District (SPD).

The proposal would allow for up to 180 multi-family units up to 65 feet in height on the site just northwest of the Booth Street bridge. The Staff Report is here and you can also view materials including the Planning Commission staff report, which analyzed compatibility with surrounding land uses and conformity to the Master Plan. I mentioned this item in my preview of the May 1 Planning Commission meeting.

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D.1 – A request to modify the 1,000 Homes in 120 Days Agreement between the City of Reno and ECI Riviera 2, LLC to extend the fee deferral payment for the Stevenson Apartments (Mod at Riverwalk 2) up to 180 days.

https://modatriverwalk.com/

This program was adopted by the City in 2019 and sunsetted last November. According to the Staff Report, this project at 344 West Second Street is “continuing to struggle with leasing units at a rate that allows them to secure permanent financing” and requests a 180-delay in paying their first installment of $72,284.33, due in August.

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D.3 –Presentation, discussion, and potential acceptance of the report regarding downtown updates for the month of May 2024.

As explained in the Staff Report, City Council directed staff in back in April to start presenting monthly reports on work being done in the “downtown core” by both City of Reno departments and the Downtown Reno Partnership (DRP).

This update mostly consists of actions related to safety, clean-up, and related services, but there’s an item from the Revitalization office’s report that caught my attention:

“Initiative 2: Planned the Relaunch Redevelopment Agency.”

I haven’t heard of this initiative before. Has someone at the City decided to reorganize City policy and/or staffing related to the Redevelopment Agency? You may recall that I have been advocating for some time for the reinstatement of the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (RAAB), as I discuss here.

Is this “Relaunch Redevelopment Agency” item related to this statement by Mayor Schieve in the last City Council meeting, as reported by This is Reno?

“Mayor Hillary Schieve…said she would like to see duties related to redevelopment separated from the city manager position, and to create a separate position focused solely on revitalization. ‘I think now more than ever it’s probably been one of our top priorities,’ Schieve said. ‘The city manager now kind of doubles as [a revitalization manager], and I think now that the redevelopment agency is generating some revenue, I think it’s something this council should look at.’” 

These references to changes in how Redevelopment is structured and handled at the City suggest to me that conversations about that are already underway, and I very much hope to see some public discussion about that rather than just a sudden announcement of decisions already made—particularly as the City is about to be run by an Interim City Manager, the new City Manager to be hired later this year could have very different ideas about how to structure redevelopment and revitalization at the City, and Councilmembers have already expressed interest in a new City Manager with extensive experience in redevelopment…which leads us to the next item.

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D.4 – Presentation, discussion, and potential appointment of Jackie Bryant as Interim City Manager effective July 8, 2024.

This comes as a recommendation from the Director of Human Resources. As described in the Staff Report, Jackie Bryant has been an Assistant City Manager at the City of Reno since April 2021. If approved, she would serve as the Interim City Manager effective July 8, 2024, after Doug Thornley’s official departure.

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E.1 – The first reading of the ordinance to implement the affordable housing initiatives approved by City Council on May 8.

I mentioned this in my June 1 Brief, and you can read the full Staff Report here.

Again, be sure to peruse the full agenda for items of interest to you. To comment on any City Council item, you can attend Wednesday’s meeting in person; use the online public comment form at Reno.Gov/PublicComment; send an email to Publiccomment@reno.gov; leave a voicemail at (775) 393-4499; or attend via Zoom by registering at https://links.reno.gov/Council06-12.

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City Seeks Proposals to Develop Former CAC properties on Record Street

Today’s final item is the announcement on June 6 that the City of Reno has issued a Request for Proposals for the former Community Assistance Center (CAC) properties on Record Street. The accompanying press release can be found here and the submittal deadline is July 19, 2024, which is right around the corner.

The City initially didn’t post the RFP on its own website, directing residents instead to register for an account on the PlanetBids website (where prospective bidders must register) to view or download them, but after several of us asked for the City to post them directly, we were informed that they will do so on Monday. [6/10/24 update: The City of Reno has now posted the RFP and all 12 attachments on its Bids, RFPs and RFQs web page at https://www.reno.gov/Home/Components/RFP/RFP/756/2054] In the meantime, This is Reno has posted the Request for Proposals and related documents online here:

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/rfp-for-reno-s-community-assistance-center/269578103

In addition to the RFP, they include twelve attachments including property appraisals, plans of the existing buildings, conditions reports, maps, and more.

Image from the site appraisal in the City’s RFP for the Record Street properties

There is much more to be said about this RFP and the process it outlines (and the shocking condition of the buildings), but I’m running out of space today. For context, consult my April 20, 2024 Brief, which described the City’s decision to issue an RFP for the site rather than follow the staff recommendation to enter into an exclusive agreement with the Bash Capital, LLC team.

I will say that I’m concerned by several aspects of this RFP, including the stated “City goals related to this Property,” which did not emerge from the Council’s direction in April and seem to prioritize housing, listing the top two “main goals for applicants to consider” as “Address Affordable and Workforce Housing” and “Increase Housing Density.”

Housing is given special attention again as the RFP reads, “The City is interested in hearing development and program options and therefore is looking for any and all concepts including the City’s strategic goal to increase affordable and workforce housing [emphasis added].”

When I asked on Facebook where these five main goals came from, the response from Revitalization Manager Bryan McArdle was “The Five Main Goals are the same from when we sold the 0 Riverside via RFP and are a summary of goals from the City’s Strategic Plan, Master Plan, and the Downtown Action Plan. (Available here:  https://www.reno.gov/government/city-council/vision-mission-and-priorities)”

But they’re not actually a summary of those goals, if you read them, and of course the 0 Riverside Drive property (discussed above) was a completely different type of site where Council had voiced a clear preference for housing. That wasn’t the case in the Council discussion of the Record Street site, which straddles the Entertainment District and Innovation District and abuts the Union Pacific Railroad main line and a railroad spur. Should housing be considered as one possible option there? Absolutely. But these goals suggest a prioritization that I don’t believe Council intended.

I’m also confused about the selection process, as described. The RFP explains that a selection committee will consist of five members chosen by the City Manager’s office, who “will evaluate the short-listed Proposals [who is creating the short list?] and measure each Respondent’s response against the selection content set forth in this document, resulting in a numerical score for each response. There are a total of 100 points available in the categories listed.” This committee will then forward its recommendation[s] to City Council.

The problem is, it’s not entirely clear what “categories” or “selection content” are being referenced here, or how a 100-point scale would be implemented. Does it refer to the “Submittal Content” with nine required sections (Cover Letter, Project Concept and Development Overview, Address City and State Goals and Objectives, Team Experience, Design, Financial Structure, Proposed Offer Price, Financial Capacity, and Timeline)? Are those to be valued equally, each comprising one-ninth of the “total of 100 points,” or will each section be assigned a rating out of 100? And how do those “five main goals” mentioned above fit into that evaluation?

Potential bidders have until July 5 to ask questions through the PlanetBids portal, and I hope they will. An optional Pre-Bid virtual meeting will be held on June 17 at 3:00pm, with information on that provided on the Bid Information page.

That’s it for today. Please participate in the primary election by voting in person on Tuesday, June 11 or postmarking your mail-in ballot by then.

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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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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 X, Facebook & Instagram. If you feel inspired to support my writing and research with a financial contribution, you can 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.