Pot shops, a juice bar and some affordable housing in a formerly abandoned mall parking lot. Those are just a few of the new business projects coming to downtown Reno. Our reporter Julia Ritchey caught up with the Reno Gazette-Journal's city life reporter Mike Higdon for the latest developments. Below are excerpts of their conversation.
Highlights
- Three new medical marijuana dispensaries are opening in Reno: two in Midtown and one in downtown. What's been the holdup? "There's an enormous amount of regulation to go through," says Higdon. "Most of them have to hire outside people who are experts from California or Colorado. But one of them in downtown is 100 percent locally owned, which is pretty cool, so they're doing a lot of hoops on their own."
- Huge urban complex coming to the former Park Lane Mall. "Chip Bowlby of the Reno Land Development Company ... purchased the 45 acres of land right in the center of the city. And he's thinking about building, essentially, a giant mixed-use area of retail and housing and office space," says Higdon. "The housing is pretty interesting because it would include affordable housing units and workforce housing, which is something he's already done in south Reno near Summit Mall."
- The 'university town' vision touted by city leaders is coming to fruition, at least a little, across from UNR's campus. In the last couple of months, a host of shops have opened at the corner of Tenth and Virginia streets, catering to the growing university. Those include new outposts for Hub Coffee Roasters and Laughing Planet Cafe as well as The Mill Juice Shop and Dropout Bike Shop. "It provides a retail experience that's not on the actual campus," says Higdon. "Now those are only across the street ... so arguably it's not making that huge connection to downtown, but it's at least a start. If you get some people to start here and do that, it will hopefully encourage other folks to spread out further and further."
Find more of Higdon's coverage at RGJ.com or follow him on Twitter.
