What's the plan?
Questions (and a few answers) about the future of Reno's urban environment
I hope that on a wintry day like this one, we can all agree on two things: that our Nevada landscape is lovely with a fresh coat of snow; and that everyone deserves to wake up on a frigid morning somewhere dry with a roof over their head.
Last week’s City Council meeting was by turns informative, emotional, maddening, reassuring, and inspiring—all depending on what topic was being discussed and by whom, and where you stood on it. Above all, with such high levels of participation both in advance and in person, it was a striking demonstration of citizen engagement in action, a testament to the premise that the voices of the people should be heard by those making decisions on their behalf. However you felt about those decisions, I hope that level of engagement will continue—because if you want one of the voices that is heard to be your own, there’s only one person who can make that happen.
There is no informed participation, however, without preparation, making it more important than ever to spread the word about upcoming meetings as early as possible. If we want to be part of the City’s plans—for anything—we need to know when those plans are being formulated, when, and by which body. So that’s the topic for today, on a variety of levels, both short- and long-term—from weekly City meetings to the City budget, redevelopment, and more, along with the usual updates and information.
What is the City of Reno planning to do and decide?
There was a time not too long ago when the Reno Gazette-Journal published a list of upcoming government meetings every single week, and their reporters regularly previewed multiple items on those agendas. Obviously, the RGJ staff has been decimated since those heady days and our media landscape has both proliferated and fragmented, with residents getting their news from a wide range of sources, many of which may not cover local government affairs much, if at all.
The City itself has been stepping up its efforts to publicize upcoming agendas lately, and it just takes a little effort on your part to take advantage of that. Those who subscribe to the “City Council Agendas” newsletter now receive notice of upcoming Reno City Council and Redevelopment Agency Board agendas as soon as they’re posted (I received my notice for the January 22 meetings on January 15). So my first piece of advice is for everyone to sign up for that newsletter.
While you’re doing that, peruse the list of all City of Reno newsletters for any other topics that interest you, from Special Events to “All News and Updates.” If you already signed up for your ward’s newsletter, you should have received a message this past week or so from your Councilmember referencing various ward-related issues and indicating how to request a meeting. And of course, the “Development Projects” newsletter provides advance notice of new applications for development projects, links to those full applications, and projected dates for them to be reviewed by Neighborhood Advisory Boards, the Planning Commission, and/or City Council.
If keeping up with the City’s plans matters to you, please share this post with anyone you think should sign up for those newsletters—and hopefully this one, as well! After all, knowledge is power, and an informed citizenry is a powerful citizenry.
While we’re on this topic, there are only two public City meetings this coming week, with agendas and materials found on the Current and Upcoming Meetings webpage:
Tuesday, Jan. 28, 9:30am – Building Enterprise Fund Advisory Committee
Tuesday, Jan. 28, 6:00pm – Recreation and Parks Commission (Those agenda items include discussion of the Wingfield and Barbara Bennett Parks master plans and possible action on park signage and a park name for the Riverwalk. Watch online by registering here.)
What’s the plan for the City’s $25 million budget shortfall?
More details are emerging about the state of the City’s budget. You can watch the entire January 22 budget discussion starting here (it lasts about 75 minutes).
If you just want the short version, as reported in the City’s January 22 Meeting Highlights, “calculations on current data available show that the City of Reno is estimating a budget shortfall next year of $25 million due to slow revenue growth and increasing personnel costs.” There are several reasons for that, as you can read in the Staff Report and the Q2 Financial Update. Here’s a slide from the latter:
So what to do about it? The highlights summary kept things pretty vague:
“The City’s next steps are as follows: continue to update data points for revenues, finalize a cost allocation plan, review fee schedule with departments, and continue discussions on proposed changes to address the structural deficit.”
The actual discussion was much more specific. For instance, City Manager Jackie Bryant told the City Council that at their February 26 meeting, staff will bring forward a list of all the facilities that the City owns and ask them to discuss which ones they might want to sell, or potentially lease, with any revenues to be deposited directly into the general fund to help with the budget shortfall.
Although no such actions were recommended for any specific properties, several were mentioned during the item, including the Downtown Reno Ballroom, currently subject to a 20-year agreement with The ROW, which programs and manages it. Also mentioned were the Redevelopment Agency’s required $1M payments for Greater Nevada Field (a lease-to-own arrangement), and the $125,000/year still being paid to Artown for the Lear Theater, with the last payment due in FY28.
Staff also brought up a plan to treat parking as an “economic development tool” that could be a self-sustaining generator of revenue. Once again, it was mentioned that the City has engaged a consultant to conduct a study of all available downtown parking spaces, with their findings to be presented in a couple of months. (I’ve mentioned references to this study before with respect to the proposed abandonment of Stevenson Street, which I don’t think should be even remotely considered until the City has allowed this study to be completed and analyzed its findings.)
Also mentioned was the obvious impact that the budget shortfall will have on the City’s own labor force, something that staff says will be analyzed as positions are frozen and the City meets with labor groups to hear their perspectives.
It certainly seems a time to focus more than ever on City expenditures and scrutinize which make financial sense, and which do not.
What’s the plan for the Reno Redevelopment Agency?
Wednesday’s budget discussion also included updates on the financial status and next steps for Reno’s Redevelopment Agency. Available funds for RDA2 at this point total about $8 million, and City Manager Bryant said that staff will be coming back to Council “soon” to prioritize what capital projects might be funded from some of that.
Not discussed at the meeting but reported by Downtown Makeover last week was the fact that the City has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to rename and rebrand Reno’s Redevelopment Agency, an approximately $90,000 contract:
Reno Redevelopment Agency to Rebrand Itself (Mike Van Houten, Downtown Makeover, 1/24/25)
You can read the stated goals in that article, a summary here, and the full RFQ below.
I’ll be frank. This troubles me. I understand the need for a dedicated website for the RDA, to serve as a single point of information about the agency’s materials, activities, and projects. At this point, the RDA has a webpage that links from the City’s Economic Development department, but it is sorely lacking in information.
For instance, City Revitalization Manager Bryan McArdle just reported on Wednesday that they have already received five applications for Tax Increment Financing, with a few more known to be coming in soon. As far as I’m concerned, residents should be able to view these applications as soon as they are submitted—and I’m not sure why we’re not seeing them on this webpage already.
However, I continue to have a lot of the same questions and concerns I had last October, including when Council (sitting as the Agency Board) is going to get a thorough explanation of prior RDA financial deals and why so many failed to reach their goals (something Councilmember Naomi Duerr specifically requested); the risks of Tax Increment Financing and issuing STAR bonds; precisely who is staffing and running the Agency and whether the long-term plan is for it to be housed in the City Manager’s office under Economic Development or independently; how residents can help to develop agreed-upon goals and plans for RDA1 and RDA2, and more.
The Q&A attached to the RFP states that the City is taking inspiration from the transformations of Boise’s Capital City Development Corp; the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation; and the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation.
Please check these three entities out, and you’ll see how different they are from Reno’s tiny Redevelopment Agency. Check out their missions, their staff expertise, and their constitutions, whether nonprofit, governmental, etc. I personally think we—meaning the Agency’s Board (Council) with extensive input from the public—have a lot of decisions to make about how Reno’s redevelopment agency should operate and how to ensure that it is effective, before hiring someone to persuade others that it already is.
What do you think?
In other RDA news, City Council sitting as the Agency Board was scheduled this past Wednesday to select up to nine individuals to serve on the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (RAAB), but that item was rescheduled to February 12. Applications for that board are now open through this coming Wednesday, January 29. You can read more about the RAAB and its mission and find a link to the application here.
I especially encourage anyone with experience in planning, architecture, historic preservation, real estate development, and related fields to apply—as well as informed and engaged individuals living and working in these areas. It would be a particularly great way for retired planning and urban design professionals to continue their service to the profession and the City with no risk of conflicts of interest.
What’s the plan for downtown Reno?
This is a huge question, and one that warrants its own post (or truly, multiple posts). But it needs to be directly discussed by the City of Reno, by the Redevelopment Agency, and most of all, by residents. My longstanding concerns about the lack of a governing, comprehensive vision for the future of Reno’s downtown core and a coherent plan to bring it to fruition have only been intensifying over the past year.
We have action. We have stated strategies and goals. But a proactive, coherent plan to make this a successful, dense urban landscape once again? I’m not seeing it. And Reno needs a coherent plan to revitalize downtown more than perhaps any other city.
Why? Because no city anywhere has experienced the trajectory that Reno has, with a downtown that transformed from a typical mixed-use, pedestrian-scale central business district to a casino core dominated by large, internally focused, tourist-oriented, purpose-built gaming edifices, most of which then closed, sending foot traffic plummeting and prompting the as-yet-unanswered question of what can succeed permanently amidst and among a bizarre ecosystem where two gaming entities dominate downtown property ownership.
In that respect, Reno is completely unique.
And yet at the same time, our city is subject to the same rules that apply to all urban environments, where vitality and safety are generated by a mix of uses that fill the landscape with people of all ages, income levels, and backgrounds, giving residents what they need and want, and treating visitors to an authentic experience that doesn’t alienate those who live here.
What is the plan?
We can’t rely on the handful of casinos that remain downtown to determine what this landscape becomes. They’re in a vulnerable position themselves, after all, subject to the vagaries of constantly changing consumer demands. The old way of doing business is not enough in this era of online betting and everything else that’s competing for the attention (and dollars) of their potential patrons, and they know it.
The tri-properties of The ROW seem to be banking on what has kept them going thus far—their combined size, restaurants, shows, and proximity to Reno’s traditional core and the event venues that attract periodic visitation and economic activity. The J Resort has apparently decided that one of its distinguishing features will be amplified live outdoor entertainment in not just one but two permanent, large, open-air outdoor venues—something has never existed in the downtown environment before.
But how do and how will the stated plans of Caesars Entertainment and Jacobs Entertainment impact this fledgling ecosystem where the only substantive new construction—the only path toward achieving the dense urban landscape this area so sorely needs—has been and is projected to be multi-family residential? The viability of most of downtown’s new residential projects remains as yet unproven, but the revitalization of downtown absolutely hinges upon their long-term success.
Do the needs and goals of these two trajectories align? Can they? And if not, which one wins? Whichever gets there first?
That’s where long-term, realistic, comprehensive planning comes in. And I, for one, think we need to be having this conversation NOW, in as many forums as possible. I’d love to hear from all of you, and especially any current residents of downtown. Where can and should we have these discussions? Let me know in the comments, reply to this email, or write me at thebarberbrief@gmail.com. And let’s talk about it.
It’s the Year of the People. Let’s make a plan, together.
More updates from the January 22, 2025 Reno City Council and Redevelopment Agency Board meetings
You can find the City of Reno’s official meeting highlights from the January 22 meetings here. In addition, there was substantial media coverage of items related to the anti-camping (and more) ordinance and the fate of the City’s former homeless shelter properties on Record Street, all in the context of the current shelter status.
Passage of the ordinance prohibiting camping, sitting, lying down, and sleeping in public spaces
Reno adopts region’s toughest policies against unhoused residents (Bert Johnson, KUNR, 1/24/25)
‘It is inhumane’: Ordinance criminalizing sitting, lying in public passed by Reno City Council (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 1/23/25)
Reno council approves making homeless camping ban citywide (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 1/23/25)
Enabling the City to demolish the former Community Assistance Center buildings on Record Street and be reimbursed upon closure of the sale
Reno council takes on demolition of former homeless shelter for affordable housing project (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 1/22/25)
Reno City Council to fund demolition of former Record Street homeless shelter (News 4 & Fox 11 Digital Staff, 1/23/25)
City to demolish former Community Assistance Center following approval of sale contract (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 1/24/25)
NEWS DIGEST: Recent articles of interest
Additional local media coverage this past week covered topics ranging from fire regionalization and plans for Rancho San Rafael Regional park to the Nevada Ethics Commission investigation of Ward 5 Reno City Councilmember Devon Reese.
Truckee Meadows lands bill to get reintroduced after end-of-year setback (Bob Conrad, This is Reno, 1/21/25)
Reno council member calls for planning commissioner’s removal over abstention (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 1/22/25)
Reno and Washoe County’s Fire Regionalization: A decade of division and ongoing talks (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 1/22/25)
Despite drama, Reno balloon race to continue as Washoe County adds parking, tree input (Ben Margiott, News4Reno, 1/22/25)
Washoe parks commission revises Rancho San Rafael plan after Balloon Races board criticism (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 1/23/25)
Washoe County projected to have $27 million deficit in 2026 (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 1/21/25)
NV lawmakers vow to target power bills, heat island effect, and extreme workplace heat (Jeniffer Solis, Nevada Current, 1/25/25)
Reno City Council member Devon Reese faces ethic complaints investigation (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 1/25/25)
The Washoe County Library System is here for you.
Tired of hitting those paywalls whenever you try to access a Reno Gazette-Journal article online? Did you know you can access the RGJ for free via the Washoe County Library? Visit this webpage for instructions on how to get your own free digital subscription. And while you’re at it, check out all the online resources available through the library—everything from issues of Consumer Reports to multiple research databases, language instruction, job seeking platforms, and national newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times.
That’s the Brief for today—please stay warm out there and look out for each other.
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.
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 contribute, you may purchase a paid subscription through Substack or contribute via Venmo at @Dr-Alicia-Barber or via check to Alicia Barber at P.O. Box 11955, Reno, NV 89510.
Thank you for this newsletter.