Cleanups continue ahead of expected influx of new residents

Downtown Reno Partnership Executive Director Neoma Jardon presented a “State of Downtown” report on Wednesday to Reno City Council members, which she said will educate investors and highlight all the city’s core has to offer. She and several other city leaders provided data on cleanup and enforcement activities for May as part of a new monthly update to Reno City Council members. 

Jardon said the State of Downtown report is a document that will help to spur more investment and less vacancy. She said she’s going out on a “roadshow” to meet with brokers and potential investors in the downtown area.

“This is a document that has every bit of information that anybody that is looking to open a business, invest money, open a retail shop — do anything in the downtown area — these are all the questions they ask about downtown,” Jardon said of the State of Downtown report. “This is what’s going to help to get us to that, hopefully, grocery store downtown, to get us those retail shops downtown.”

Jardon said the DRP staff also addressed more than 500 encampments, recovered 155 shopping carts, performed 251 pressure washes and collected over 23,000 pounds of trash in May. 

“We’ve practically had zero population growth in downtown for the last 30 years.”

“We take about five truckloads of trash to the dump every day,” Jardon said. 

The City’s Cynthia Esparza said an agreement with Union Pacific has also been reached for the company to do monthly cleanups along the railroad through downtown Reno. Alex Woodley, the city’s director of parking and code enforcement, said the city also regularly issues fines to the railroad.

“We continue to issue fines, and we even got a little creative on issuing fines,” Woodley said. “They’re getting all the fines we can give them.”

Reno Police Captain Jerel Hallert said the department took on three initiatives in May: continuing downtown walking assignments, using a community action and outreach unit intern, and developing and implementing monthly operational plans. 

He said that through these initiatives, police made 878 walking contacts, took on 24 planned operations downtown, and towed 10 vehicles. The city’s code enforcement also issued nearly 500 parking tickets and closed 22 parking enforcement service requests. In total, 29 code enforcement cases within the downtown area were dealt with and closed, including 15 proactive cases. 

Downtown to double population

City Revitalization Manager Bryan McArdle said significant increases in residential units downtown are imminent. He said only 336 new residential units have been added downtown over the past decade, including 150 units of student housing. However, 929 new units will become available this year, tripling the number of new units in one year alone. 

“We’ve practically had zero population growth in downtown for the last 30 years,” McArdle said. However, the residential population could double in the downtown area with a planned 2,500 units on the horizon, including those within the Reno City Center project. 

McArdle added that increasing the population downtown is important to attract retail businesses.

Council members said they were enthusiastic about downtown activities but encouraged continued efforts. Both Council members Meghan Ebert and Naomi Duerr asked for past data to compare what’s happening now with the past. Council member Kathleen Taylor shared feedback she received at her most recent neighborhood advisory board meeting.

“We have got to have some sort of enforcement downtown at night,” Taylor said. “We are having challenges at two and three in the morning with the businesses and the patrons around there. Please let us know how we can give you the resources you need to make that happen.”

Jardon said they have already approved a new security team, but the state-level hang-ups are creating a challenge. She said security officers need to be licensed before they can work – however, state officials said they will not review the applications until September. 

“We’ve tried everything to try to see if they could expedite [the applications],” Jardon said. “We are still going to bring the individuals on and get them out on the street, but to have them actually doing security guard type work that won’t be until September.”

Jardon said DRP is investigating other options to fill the gap during the summer, such as hiring a licensed private security team. Council member Jenny Brekhus said she saw the need for security downtown but wanted to ensure that private security officers were well-trained and, if interacting with the public, were not acting as a “shadow police department.” 

She also said she was concerned about the mention of relaunching the city’s Redevelopment Agency, which she said never went away. She said, however, she wants to ensure transparency in the process.

“I think the outline of that needs to be, ‘Council, how do you want to go about relaunching and talking about the Redevelopment Agency,’ not ‘Here’s the plan we created, approve it and adopt it,’” she said. “We need as we reactivate it to include the public. There are a lot of people paying into it. It cannot be, ‘Here’s what we worked on up on the 15th floor with these people and these stakeholders.’ It needs to be a very public and transparent process.”