California developer buys closed casino in downtown Reno

Wednesday, April 26, 2000 | 1:12 a.m.

"We select things which we feel have a future and not properties which we intend to blow up," said Karl Diaz-Hoffman, president of the Oakland-based Nationwide Capital Services LLC.

The company bought the hotel-casino for $3.2 million on April 7 and paid another $500,000 in delinquent property taxes.

Daryl Drake, a real estate broker with Commercial Real Estate Services in Reno, said the sales price was "very reasonable."

The asking price had been $4.5 million in cash or $5 million with terms, he said.

"I think the real positive thing is were doing something with a building . . . that has basically been abandoned for many years," Drake said. "Here's an outside investor willing to make an investment in downtown Reno and reopen a real blighted building."

Diaz-Hoffman had proposed to buy the closed Mapes Hotel in downtown Reno from the city Redevelopment Agency for $2.5 million and to spend $23 million to reopen it as senior housing.

The city rejected the offer, saying the building would cost much more to restore, and the building was imploded on Jan. 30 this year.

Diaz-Hoffman won't comment on what he's considering for the property located across Arlington Avenue from the Sands Regency Casino/Hotel.

"Obviously, we need to do a great deal of work there," he said, anticipating a decision in about two months.

The Kings Inn has been closed for business since 1986 at the corner of West Third and West streets, an area considered a blight in the downtown corridor and no help to Reno's efforts to improve tourism.

It is the ninth casino that has been sold, or is facing sale, downtown in a little more than a year.

"It creates a negative impression and separates us a little bit more from the main Virginia Street traffic," said Ferenc Szony, president and chief executive officer of the Sands.

"Unfortunately, it is viewed by foot traffic, particularly, as a seedy environment."

Szony hopes the new owner does not reopen the Kings Inn as a "parasite" casino that tries to survive off the gambling business generated by its neighbors.

"I think that it's proven by itself, just operating as a hotel-casino, it was not successful," he said. "But if they're looking to really create (an attraction) there, that could be wonderful."

The Kings Inn, which was built in 1973 for $6.5 million and opened in 1974, has 159 rooms, 109 subterranean parking spaces and is more than 60,000 square feet. Diaz-Hoffman said it is structurally sound and was retrofitted in about 1995 with a fire sprinkler system and other improvements.

Gary Foote, vice president of Harrys Business Machines next door to the property, hopes something good happens with the site.

"Its hard for me to believe that it wouldn't be torn down," Foote said.

The transaction follows numerous others in downtown Reno since 1999. Those include:

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