Preservation group’s perfect batting average at risk in Reno, Detroit

Scott Sonner

Thursday, Sept. 23, 1999 | 9:52 a.m.

National Trust's preservation goals

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is fighting to save Reno's Mapes Hotel, which it named to a list of the 11 Most Endangered Places in 1998, and Detroit's Tiger Stadium, which was listed in 1991 and 1992.

Other well-known sites named to the list, first issued in 1988:

Other sites the trust has helped protect:

RENO, Nev. - The National Trust for Historic Preservation has not lost a major fight since it started listing the most endangered buildings and places in America in 1988.

But a demolition date for one of the nation's most historic casinos, the Mapes Hotel in Reno, and fading hopes for Tiger Stadium in Detroit, one of the oldest major league ballparks, have the nonprofit group's leaders fearing the worst.

"We've never lost one on our list and now we have two that are at very great risk," said Richard Moe, president of the 50-year-old national trust based in Washington, D.C. "I suppose it was inevitable we'd lose one at some point."

The Mapes, a 12-story brick building built in 1947 on the banks of the Truckee River, was the first in the nation to house a hotel, a casino and other entertainment under one roof. Its art deco style earned it a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Local preservationists have fought three years to save the Mapes. They suffered their biggest setback earlier this month when the City Council approved a $1 million contract to demolish the building in February.

"This would be a tragic loss not just for Reno but to the country. It is a very significant building," Moe said in a telephone interview, who predicted efforts to save the building would fail.

Tiger Stadium, soon to be vacant, is not officially headed for the scrap heap yet. But activists trying to save it are skeptical of the city's solicitation of bids to turn it into apartments or a shopping mall.

"It's also seriously threatened," Moe said this week.

Demolition dates have been set before for the Mapes, only to be rescinded. But the 5-2 vote two weeks ago has city leaders convinced this is really the end. They say renovation has proven too costly, partly because of work needed to guard against earthquakes.

"It is a sad day, but basically there is no white knight," Mayor Jeff Griffin said. "We tried every possible way to save it."

The Mapes was Nevada's tallest building when it opened 51 years ago.

During its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, top-name entertainers such as Sammy Davis Jr., Mae West and the Marx Brothers headlined in the window-walled Sky Room with its top-floor views of the Sierra Nevada. Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe were regulars in later years.

Since 1982, the Mapes has sat boarded up and vacant, much to the chagrin of city officials who view the property as key to the city's downtown redevelopment.

Moe cannot remember the loss of a more significant building since the demolition of Penn Station in New York City in 1963.

"Everybody now regrets that it was lost. It really became a catalyst for the preservation movement in New York," Moe said.

"Once the Mapes is gone, it is gone forever and there's no question people will regret it for a long, long time."

Locals are holding out hope the City Council will reconsider.

"We have lived with demolition since September of '97. So when people throw out the idea of demolition to us, that is not a new word to our vocabulary," said Toni Mollet Harsh of the Truckee Meadows Heritage Trust.

But there's already talk among city council members of moving up the demolition to coincide with a New Year's Eve celebration to help ring in the new millennium.

"My view is I want to just do it at night in the dark and get on with it," Griffin said. "But I've had a number of people actually say this is a time for celebration and as part of that celebration we could do the event in a spectacular way.

Like the Mapes, Tiger Stadium is on the National Register of Historic Places. Its future is less certain.

The last Tigers game will be played there Sept. 27. They move to a new stadium next season. The city goverment will maintain control of Tiger Stadium for at least another year.

Leaders had hoped to pick a developer by now but extended the deadline this week after getting only three partial bids.

"It is being floated with the understanding it is never going to happen," Dave Malhalab, a Detroit police officer who has been active in the fight to save the stadium, said Wednesday. "It is nothing but a camouflage to the end of Tiger Stadium."