Reno’s Historic Mapes Hotel to be blown up on Super Bowl Sunday

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 1999 | 10:49 a.m.

The 52-year-old hotel casino now has a date with the wrecking ball at 8 a.m. on January 30.

The council voted to set up a public viewing area but rejected proposals to make a celebration out of the event.

Historic preservationists tried for years to save the 12-story brick building on South Virginia Street along the banks of the Truckee River.

Some business leaders wanted to promote the implosion of the Mapes as a tourist attraction on the busy Super Bowl weekend. But the council decided Tuesday night to bring it down with minimal hoopla.

"There's no need to make a spectacle of it," Councilman Bill Newberg said.

Mayor Jeff Griffin said earlier he opposed a big promotion because he didn't want to rub it in the face of those who lost the battle to save the hotel.

"I just want to make sure it's a public process with a safe place set aside to watch," Councilman David Aiazzi said Tuesday night.

The Mapes was the first in the nation to house a casino, hotel and entertainment under one roof, but it has sat vacant since 1982. Its unique art deco style earned it a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

During its peak in the late 1950s and 1950s, big-name entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett performed in the window-walled Skyroom on the top floor.

Officials for a San Francisco developer, Nationwide Capital Services, made a late offer in September to refurbish the Mapes. They said they were willing to buy the building, pay off the city's $2.5 million debt to the former submit plans in four months and begin construction in nine.

But the council members said they had waited too long and were moving ahead with the demolition.