UNR-area commercial grows

Andrew Zutshi's off-campus life is different

than those of his fraternity brothers at

Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapters in

California and elsewhere. Zutshi, 19, is an

officer at the SAE house on the corner of

East Ninth Street and Evans Avenue,

across the street and two blocks down from

the University of Nevada, Reno's main

entrance at North Center Street. On visits

to fellow chapters at San Diego State

University, Louisiana State University and

elsewhere, Zutshi has surveyed an array of

neighborhood retail establishments

bookstores,music stores, smoke shops, jewelers,

tattoo parlors, body-piercing emporiums,

skate shops, bicycle shops, clothing

boutiques, photocopy centers, video

arcades, pizzerias, sandwich shops, coffeehouses,

bars and more.

"You see more locally owned and operated

places around those colleges," Zutshi

says. "It's kind of like a city within a

city there."

But UNR has no "college town" a

concentration of nearby businesses catering

to a campus community. UNR is known as

a "commuter campus" because a relatively

small proportion of its 14,000-plus students

live in campus housing. There are 14

off-campus retail businesses largely

spread apart from each other (and three

of them closed for remodeling this summer)

within a 10-minute walk of the

220-acre main campus bound on the west

by North Virginia Street, the north by

North McCarran Boulevard, the east by

Evans Avenue and the south by East

Ninth Street.

"A lot of local food places should come

around here," says Zutshi, a health-ecology

major. "It's said UNR is a good school for

people, and Reno is a college town. But I

don't think so."

But the times they are a-changin'.

UNR's booming student population and

expanding campus, a proposed university

master plan that would foster off-campus

retail zones and city officials' intentions to

link the downtown tourist zone with the

"Campus on the Hill" four blocks north

point to a vibrant commercial future for the

university neighborhood.

One harbinger is the opening on July 3

of a Walgreens drugstore at 750 N.

Virginia St., on a leased vacant lot on an

overpass of Interstate 80, two blocks south

of the main university entrance. The 24-

hour store, in 15,400 square feet, sits in

what has been a retail dead zone between

campus and downtown. The store sells

20,000 items including UNR clothing and

souvenirs. Gigantic tube trusses support the

structure on its concrete deck, set over the

six-lane freeway.

"The location is perfect because of the

good visibility and the proximity to both

the university and to downtown," says

Walgreens corporate spokeswoman Carol

Hively of the second Walgreens to open in

Reno in the past five years (the other is at

South Virginia Street and Moana Lane).

"Walgreens chooses only the best locations

and carefully researches locations for lasting

success. That should give some indication

of our confidence in the area."

"Walgreens is your link to downtown,"

says Neal Cobb, who's lived most of his 63

years within two blocks of campus, chaired

the West University Neighborhood

Advisory Board for the city of Reno and

still serves on the city's historic resources

commission, although he recently moved to

Golden Valley. "Walgreens also is the link

to anything and everything students might

want that won't be available (at the student

union's ASUN Bookstore) on campus

the pharmaceuticals, lotions, all the stuff.

Once you have a successful retailer in the

area, others are going to follow."

Cobb has seen multiple businesses

sprout, wither and expire in the university

neighborhood over the past half-century.

The building at 10 E. Ninth St., on the

corner of North Center Street immediately

across from the main

campus entrance, was the Wolf Den

bar/restaurant in the 1940s, then a

Chinese eatery called the Library, and

later housed a string of other restaurants

leading up to its present occupant, the

Breakaway bar/restaurant. The next-door

building at 58 E. Ninth had a barbershop,

bookstores and other businesses before

becoming home to the Beer Barrel pub. A

Kinko's photocopy shop opened and

closed in the adjacent space at 60 E.

Ninth St. that later was a sandwich shop

(and is to be again this October). The

Twisted Chimney coffeehouse on the corner

of 12th and North Virginia streets

lasted less than a year in 1999.

But Cobb is optimistic that Walgreens

coupled with careful university development

will be a catalyst for a commercial

belt serving the campus population,

residents of the west university and

downtown neighborhoods, and area

workers or tourists. The triad of customer

bases is a vital combination to sustain offcampus

businesses, given the summertime

drop-off of student traffic between UNR's

May commencement and the start of fall

semester in late August, Cobb and local

retailers say.

The Pub and Sub which for 28

years has been an off-campus hangout,

serving sandwiches, pizza and beer and

featuring a pool table and beer garden

prospers on the corner of 10th and

Ralston streets, four blocks west of campus,

because of its year-round mix of

clientele, says owner Steve Mathers.

After UNR students leave for the summer,

alumni and their families continue to

patronize his establishment, as do neighborhood

residents and workers from the

health-care offices around nearby Saint

Mary's Regional Medical Center, at the

northwest edge of downtown. "We're fortunate

we have so many people who grew up

here and went to college, or lived in this

neighborhood and come here," says

Mathers, 50, who opened the Pub and Sub

as a 22-year-old finance major at UNR.

The 4,800-square-foot building on a

7,000-square-foot lot had housed two tiny

groceries before Mathers moved in.

"This neighborhood is one of the most

dense neighborhoods in the city, about

seven times denser than any other neighborhood

in the city," says Mathers, who

served seven years on the West University

Neighborhood Advisory Board. "The city

average is about three-and-a-half people

per acre. In this neighborhood it's 21 people

per acre, year-round. That's one of the

reasons we survive here."

Year-round customer traffic makes or

breaks an off-campus enterprise, and so

does access to customers coming or leaving

campus, Cobb says. UNR additions of

parking in its expanding campus should

encourage off-campus retail, he says.

"With the more parking the university

provides like with the new Brian Whalen

garage (a 1,003-space complex on North

Virginia Street just south of Lawlor Events

Center) and lots up north of campus using

the (university) shuttle system you'll have

a transition area utilized by the residents as

well as the campus, that isn't either college or

residential," Cobb says. "We'll have a commercial

belt, if done right, that's the buffer

between the college itself and the residents

adjacent to it. It's going to bring the downtown

up to the university. Casino workers

will be using the same Walgreens as the college

kids and faculty.

"I don't see how in the world it can lose."

Student growth and a concomitant

expansion of campus facilities and land

play into the vision of a college town banding

UNR.

Just as the population of the Biggest

Little City and its environs keep getting

bigger with an annual growth rate of about

2.5 percent, UNR's student population is

growing. Actually, it's booming thanks

in part to the state of Nevada's Millennium

Scholarships, funded by national tobaccosettlement

money, which since 2000 have

offered tuition dollars to Nevada high

school graduates who've accumulated minimum

3.0 grade-point averages.

UNR's total head count for students was

6,317 in 1970, 8,524 in 1980 and 10,572 in

1990. In 2000 it was 12,532 and this fall is

14,316. At projected rates, fall 2003's head

count is forecast to be 15,262, and by 2010,

19,976. Meanwhile, the number of combined

faculty and staff if funded at proportional

rates by the state Legislature

would grow from its present 1,650 at a rate

of 2 to 3 percent a year. The campus population

of students and employees by the end

of the decade could exceed 25,000.

More on-campus housing is planned.

UNR's seven residence halls are at full

capacity with 1,500 students (up from 1,000

in 1991), and four construction phases are

planned over the next seven years to almost

double that figure. A 250-bed addition to

the New Hall on North Virginia and

Artemesia streets will come on line by

August 2003, says Buzz Nelson, UNR assistant

vice president for facilities services.

Three other proposed phases include converting

the UNR-owned University Inn on

10th and North Virginia streets from a hotel

into dormitory housing 350 students by

2005; building a residence hall next to the

University Inn to house 300 students by

2007; and constructing another residence

hall north of the current Canada Hall on

North Virginia Street, to house 300 students

by 2009. UNR also is considering building a

married student/graduate student complex

northeast of campus by 2009, to accommodate

200 residents, Nelson says.

"Campus is becoming less commuterdriven,"

says John Trent, UNR's interim

director of communications. "The influx of

Millennium Scholarship students has been

a big help in building more of a sense of

community on campus," he says. "The traditional

view of our campus has been that

we have an older student body that shuttles

immediately from campus to their work in

the casinos. That still might be true, but

we're finding that more students are spending

more time on campus, and that businesses

are realizing that this is a great market

to tap into."

To date, three factors have inhibited

growth of an off-campus college town, says

Brian Bonnenfant, a program manager

with the Bureau of Business and Economic

Research in UNR's College of Business

Administration. Foremost is competition

from on-campus retailers, he says.

The university contracts with a commercial

food vendor to operate a Taco Bell,

Pizza Hut and several other mall-type fastfood

outlets. The Jot Travis Student Union

offers three cafeteria-type restaurants, and

the university has a cafe in its student services

building. The student union also contains

the ASUN Bookstore, which in addition to

12,000 titles of general books, sells textbooks,

school supplies, emblematic clothing

and gifts, toiletries, snack food, and

computers and software that students and

employees can purchase on discounted

manufacturer prices.

A second factor working against off-campus

retailers is land availability, Bonnenfant

says. "The campus is sandwiched by residential

neighborhoods that aggressively fight

proposed commercial development. The

commercially zoned areas around the campus

are limited to Virginia Street and south

of campus.Within those areas there is very

limited vacant space. Figure in the county

codes that dictate so many parking spaces per

occupancy, and that results in a large

chunk of real estate required to open a

commercial business."

A third factor challenging would-be

retailers is the high price for facilities and

land zoned for commercial use,

Bonnenfant says.

"There's not a lot of retail space," says

Paul Doege, owner of Recycled Records, on

South Virginia Street, who in 1998 opened a

satellite store of his used-music business in a

500-square-foot commercial space at the

front of an apartment building at 812 N.

Virginia St., a two-block walk from UNR's

main entrance.

Much of the retail space near the university

was taken up years ago by motels serving

downtown casino tourists, Doege says.

"Maybe in a few years, someone with a lot of

money may buy up the land and tear down

the motels and put in college-friendly retail."

That could happen. If UNR's 20-year

master plan, to be completed in 2003, fulfills

its goals college-town-like retail will

permanently become part of the campus

community.

The master plan will show a university

campus expanded by 350 additional acres,

stretching from Sierra Street east to Wells

Avenue or Sutro Street, and from North

McCarran south to I-80, Nelson says. By

2012, the campus acreage already may

have doubled, he says.And the master plan

supports two large off-campus retail zones

between East Ninth Street and I-80,

from Sierra Street east to Lake Street; and

on the west side of North Virginia Street,

north of College Drive to McCarran

Nelson says.

Such commercial development "is not

only inevitable but extremely important to

the growth of the campus and the university,"

he says. "There need to be support

services for the people living in what

will be a much more populous university

community."

Bonnenfant cites a preliminary redevelopment

plan by the city of Reno for its

downtown entertainment zone to merge

with UNR's campus. "They are talking

about relocating the (Fleischmann)

Planetarium (currently off North Virginia

Street a mile north of I-80 in the university's

northwest campus area) to the south of

campus and adding other educational and

entertainment venues. This would generate

a lot of retail."

Even before the appearance of

Walgreens, retail sales continued to

increase among the dozen-plus retailers in

the university neighborhood.

Sales for 1999 and 2000 (the most

recent years for which analyzed data readily

are available) for 13 off-campus retail

businesses in the university neighborhood

show retail grew by about 7 percent

"This is by far the No. 1 student-oriented

bar location," says Steve Nicholas, new

co-owner of the Beer Barrel with his halfbrother,

Scott Holmes. The two say they're

"ecstatic" to be leasing a business in a prime

location, which they eventually may buy.

Holmes, 37, is an entrepreneur with

one successful national business (providing

security gates and phones) already on his

resume, and with years of experience

working in all facets of restaurants and

bars. Nicholas, 29, a 1996 UNR graduate

in political science, teaches history at

North Valley's High School but has a

background firmly established at the Beer

Barrel: he both patronized and worked at

the little bar as a student.

He and Holmes see the Beer Barrel and

the cafe they intend to open next-door as

surefire successes if managed correctly,

given the proximity to campus and the

burgeoning university growth. They have

spent the summer remodeling the 900-

square-foot bar with the sweat of their

own brows, and plan to refurbish the similar-

sized cafe area.

"We're getting it back to what it used to

be," Nicholas says of the Beer Barrel. "A

very traditional college-student hangout."

"The 'sludge' will be kept to a minimum,"

Holmes adds, referring to the

grime that often has coated the floor of the

funky establishment. "Sludge is a trademark

of the Beer Barrel.We'll try to clean

it up without changing it."

Graffiti another tradition will be

moderated, as the walls periodically will be

repainted in UNR's silver and blue colors,

but marker pens will be handed to patrons

to contribute fresh taggings, Holmes says.

He and Nicholas hope to sponsor a

"Bar Olympics" among fraternities and

other student groups, competing in pool,

shuffleboard and darts. But the planned

cafe/sandwich shop as yet unnamed

will cater not to the student bar crowd

but the "morning-afternoon" crowd,

Holmes says. "A place to have lunch with

your professor."

The Record Street Cafe, meanwhile

which opened on June 4 and hurried to

complete remodeling to coincide with the

beginning of fall semester will serve "a

medley of diverse clientele," says co-owner

and chef Greg Callender.

"It's for anyone from graduate students

to professors to people who work

construction locally, and of course the

College of Agriculture, and government

workers from Valley Road offices,"

Callender says. "I have the Washoe

County Schools administration building

next door, and the College of Agriculture

across the street, and the SAE fraternity

house is behind me."

The cafe, at 945 Record St., is tucked

along a short, hidden street between Evans

Avenue and East Ninth Street, next to

railroad tracks that add to the building's

character. "A train comes by about 8:30 or

so in the morning, and again during afternoon

happy hour between 5:20 and 5:40,"

Callender says. "The conductor will wave

at you. The train lasts about five minutes.

It's a little bit loud, but it's one of the characteristics

of the building."

The brick and wood structure, containing

1,900 square feet of floor space, was

built in the 1930s as a Western Pacific

Railroad maintenance building, Callender

says. Later, it housed a hardwood flooring

company, but was vacant for more than a

decade before the cafe opened. Reno

lawyer Fred Atcheson owns the building,

and is part-owner of the corporation that

owns the cafe, along with Callender and

Atcheson's son, Chris. Daughter Zoe

Atcheson is managing the bistro.

Students can take advantage of the

cafe's wireless access for laptop computers.

The cafe may occasionally feature lowdecibel

live music to not disturb the

residential neighborhood.

Callender, 35, previously worked in

restaurants in California, Oregon and

Tennessee, including at a French restaurant

in Knoxville, home of the University

of Tennessee. He hopes UNR develops a

college town.

"When I was in Knoxville, everything

was right down the strip, to where the kids

didn't have to drive, in an easily walkable

area where they could get food, or have fun

or entertainment."

That would suit Andrew Zutshi just

fine. His SAE fraternity house is a stone's

throw from the Record Street Cafe.

"I'd like to see a restaurant you go and

have food at and relax, do your homework

outdoors," Zutshi says. "The Pub and Sub

is like that, but you need more than one for

a campus with 14,000 students."

With UNR's population and size

growing, with Walgreens' opening and

the emergence of businesses such as the

Record Street Cafe a college

town seems to be on Reno's horizon,

Zutshi says.

"It's slowly going to come to that.We're

taking a step in the right direction."