Council votes to raze historic hotel

Tuesday, Sept. 14, 1999 | 10:55 a.m.

The Reno City Council rejected three last-ditch bids to buy the historic building and voted 5-2 late Monday to tear it down.

The move apparently ends a decade of debate and failed offers to save the vacant hotel-casino.

"Its time to let go of this thing," Mayor Jeff Griffin said. "There is no white knight." Griffin and council members Dave Rigdon, Sherrie Doyle, Bill Newberg and Tom Herndon favored demolition.

Councilmen Pierre Hascheff and Dave Aiazzi argued in favor of continuing to pursue one of the three proposals for purchase and renovation of the hotel.

Backers of that bid were the only ones to agree to give the city a nonrefundable $100,000 deposit for a four-month option to buy the property. Nationwide Capital Services of San Francisco intended to use the extra time to conduct a market study on its plan to convert the Mapes into senior and assisted-living apartments.

Nationwide offered to buy the hotel from the city for $2.2 million and said it would invest $19 million for rehabilitation work.

But council members said they did not want to go through another round with another developer to find out rehab costs were still unworkable.

After the vote, the council chose Clauss Construction of Lakeside, Calif., to implode the building in February for $819,000. The council also approved a loan from the general fund for up to $1 million to cover costs.

The city's redevelopment agency purchased the Mapes three years ago for $4 million. Once the lot is cleared, the site will be put up for sale.

The 51-year-old hotel has long been considered a landmark because of the movie stars, entertainers and state politicians who made it a celebrated hangout in the 1950s, but it has been closed for 17 years.

The Mapes was the first site ever put on the National Trust for Historic Preservations 11-most-endangered list to meet the wrecking ball.

"In over 10 years and 100 sites, we never lost one," Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C., said before Mondays meeting. "This will be a black mark for Reno."