Identity & Place on Fourth Street
By Alicia Barber
Today’s Brief concerns some of my favorite topics: heritage, place, and identity, all swirling around one of Reno’s most historic thoroughfares: Fourth Street. Coming up on the October 25th City Council agenda are two items pertaining to the designation and naming of districts—coincidentally located on two sides of the same corridor. They’re both important for residents to engage with, but for very different reasons, so I hope you’ll take the time not just to read today’s post but to send in your comments to City Council in advance of Wednesday’s meeting.
On one side, we have the opportunity to pursue designating historic East 4th Street as a National Register Historic District, and on the other side, a staff recommendation to devote City resources to allow a private corporation to brand the entire west side of downtown. So pour that third mug of coffee and let’s dive in.
East 4th Street National Historic District
First, under Item B.21, the Council will consider accepting a $30,000 grant from Nevada’s State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) to conduct a survey and inventory of historic properties along East 4th Street as a first step toward nominating it as a National Register Historic District. Matching funds of $10K would come from redevelopment money. You can read the Staff Report here.
The City currently has two National Register districts: the Newlands Historic District and the University of Nevada, Reno Historic District, along with the locally designated Wells Avenue and Powning Conservation Districts. Historic districts not only bolster historic preservation, but strengthen place identity, draw tourists, and help to reinforce sense of place. The proposed survey, which could extend east to Galletti Way, will allow the City to identify every property along the corridor that’s eligible for the National Register by documenting its history and assessing its current integrity. The process is fully transparent: results are reviewed in public meetings at the local, state, and national level, and the district can’t be listed if a majority of property owners object (although there’s no reason to—a National Register listing places no restrictionson what owners can do with their property).
I encourage everyone to urge City Council to accept these funds and move forward with that grant project by voting In Favor of Item B. 21, which you can do by following the directions at the top of the agenda.
Reno’s Neon Line District®
Then there’s what’s happening over on West 4th Street.
Under Item D. 1 on Wednesday’s agenda, City Council will decide whether or not to appeal a judicial Order filed September 22, 2023 that prohibits Jacobs Entertainment from erecting two of the three signs that the City granted them in their Development Agreement. The staff report recommends that Council vote to appeal the decision.
As you might recall, Reno City Council approved the Development Agreement with Jacobs in October of 2021, although it wasn’t officially recorded with the County until November of 2022. You can view the final document on the County website here.
One of the three signs was to be located on cemetery land facing Interstate 80 (the “Cemetery Sign”), another was on the Chevron gas station parcel at Keystone & West 4th (the “Gas Station Sign”), and a third was a 102-foot wide archway (the “Archway Sign”) to be built over four lanes of traffic on West 4th Street, a public right-of-way.
In the Development Agreement, the City categorized all three as “Area Identification Signs.” Doing so was essential to allow these signs to be erected in places or at sizes that otherwise wouldn’t be allowed. In November of 2021, the nonprofit organization Scenic Nevada sued the City, stating among other things that the proposed signs did indeed violate the City’s own code and were not permissible.
Washoe County District Court Judge Connie Steinheimer’s Order, which you can read here, agreed with Scenic Nevada on two counts, concluding that two of the signs were NOT in fact Area Identification Signs—that the proposed Cemetery Sign was actually a billboard and the Gas Station sign was an on-premises sign whose height (25 feet) would violate City code. The Order stated that the Archway Sign was the only one of the three to be accurately described as “Area Identification Sign” and could move forward. Judge Steinheimer upheld the rest of the Development Agreement.
And now City staff wants Council to appeal that decision.
You can read Scenic Nevada’s explanation of the judge’s decision here and their alert about Wednesday’s agenda item here, with detailed instructions for how to participate. Why the City wants to appeal the judge’s Order is not stated, but one can presume it’s to try to persuade the court that all three signs should be allowed (of course, the court could also decide to prohibit all three signs and even invalidate the entire Development Agreement, but that’s the risk the City would take).
There are several entangled issues here related to signage code—specifically what kinds of signs are allowed and prohibited within Reno city limits, and especially how they are classified. I’m not going to get into all the technicalities, but there is one issue at the core of all of this, and that’s whether these signs would genuinely identify an area. And that’s worth looking into much more closely.
Read the rest at The Barber Brief.
The Barber Brief is an independent e-newsletter and blog written by Dr. Alicia Barber on the Substack platform. It is reposted by This Is Reno with her permission.
