Extreme Makeover

BIG hat-tip to Myrna the Mynx (how do you find time for 50 posts a day, Mynx?) for bringing to our attention Extreme Makeover: Downtown Edition, a website keeping track of all downtown Reno redevelopment projects, as well as a few area biggies outside the downtown area like the Sparks Marina and Grand Sierra (i.e. the Reno Hilton, or as Sugafree9 likes to call it, the MGM). I'm not sure how long this site has been around or how I managed to miss it up until now, but I'm glad I've caught on to it. Whomever designed this excellent site, he's apparently remaining anonymous except to reveal the fact that like me he lives downtown, and he's obviously pretty excited about what's currently taking place there. If you want to get caught up on all the redevelopment projects going on around town, this is without question the place to go.

In cruising the site, one thing I'm thrilled to discover is that something is finally going to be done this summer with downtown Reno's greatest eyesore (and that's saying a lot), the decrepit Kings Inn, which has been vacant and rotting for twenty years. Yes, you heard right, twenty years!!!! The plan is apparently to turn this...

into this....

It can't happen a moment too soon as far as I'm concerned, although I guess all the rats will have to find new places to live. But this sort of conversion is emblematic of what's going on all over downtown right now. It's not happening as fast as I had hoped it would, and I'm still not sold on the notion that there's really enough demand to fill all these new living spaces, but it is undeniably pretty exciting. If, as some firmly believe, downtown Reno is going to become home to thousands of new residents in the coming months and years, these new residents will find websites like Extreme Makeover to be invaluable resources.