Geometry and Color

The building at 920 Matley Lane, known to longtime locals as the old Reno Athletic Club, was tired, faded - and worse, dated.

That's changed.

And all it took were some bright colors, some whimsical geometric shapes, a few new doors, and an architect to envision it.

The building is capturing attention, says Sandy Goldbeck, commercial division manager of Gaston & Wilkerson Management Group, the firm handling the building, along with the one-story buildings next door - which altogether make up the Reno Business Park.

The renovation was a big expense, she adds.

The building - a barebones tilt-up of approximately 22,000 square feet was taken back to the shell.

The exterior renovation was tackled first, while interior buildouts awaited tenant specifications.

"In a way, the building is comic-book inspired," says architect Lisa Marie Moberly, sole owner of Arkitektura, Inc., based in Reno and the architect on the job.

She started with today's most popular palette, Tuscan.

But wanted it livelier, fresher, so moved off the Tuscan tones a bit.

Then added a nod to corporate blue.

"The building needed visual identity," says Moberly.Her mission was to create it.

The building had its inherent limitations.As a concrete tiltup, says Moberly, doors and windows had to stay three feet away from the edge of the panels.And she needed to break the building into seven distinct spaces, with seven entrances, accompanying windows, and rollup doors.

A challenge.

Moberly began by camouflaging the building corners, adding geometric foamshapes.

The corners, created with standard exterior insulating and finish systems, altered the box's square.

Then, says Moberly, she used the same insulating and finish techniques, plus awnings, to define the individual units.

Each has its own entrance and signage area.

Final touch - creation of depth and further individuality for the building via color on the building and shapes.

It's an industrial aesthetic with a playful spirit, a design followed through even in the X-ed windows, which harken back to old industrial roots.

To turn the designs into reality, the owners Nevada Southwest Investments, LLC hired a Reno firm,Moody Weiske Contractors, with Kevin Weiske as contractor in charge.

"The design is a series of parts and colors," says Moberly, that can be repeated in the Reno Business Park's buildings next-door.

Those two buildings (at 940 and 960 Matley) have already been sketched out.

And, they're scheduled for redesign, too - probably beginning in summer 2005, says Goldbeck.

The design's shapes and colors are great fun, but how do they affect the bottom line? It is attracting attention, Goldbeck says.And all but one of the redesigned spaces is leased.

"People want an upscale look and the identity of that look," adds Goldbeck.

They're willing to pay more for it.

The old space, she says, could have leased for about 55 to 60 cents a square foot.

The renovated spaces go for 90 cents to $1.15 per square foot, triple net, on five-year leases.

They're sized to fit Reno's market needs, all but one at about 3,000 square feet."We deliberately made them that size," says Goldbeck, because there are lots of 1,000- and 5,000-square-foot spaces in the industrial market.

In fact, Reno Business Park's other two buildings run about 1,000 square feet per space.

What's missing in Reno is that mid-size space.

Tenants snapping up the colorful new spaces are distribution and distributionrelated businesses, says Goldbeck, all of them moving from other spaces in town - move-ins to begin in April.

"We didn't double-deck the building," either, she says.And the new tenants seem to like that, whether they require the space for forklifts and pallets or not.

It's airy.

No matter how much fun the building is though, in real estate, decisions come down to location.

Goldbeck sees Matley Lane as one of the best locations in town, even though it's not in one of the snazzy, new South Meadows parks.

It's right off the freeway, with access to routes flowing directly into Sparks, Carson, and Tahoe.

But it's the design that's pulling them in, she says.

The owners are betting that putting their money into the design, plus redesign of the other buildings, will be profitable enough, too, to justify building on the vacant lot that adjoins 920 Matley.

There's a whole gentrification of that area going on, Goldbeck says, predicting that buildings that have been overlooked by landlords just might get a facelift now.

Every period has its identifiable colors, says Moberly.

In the 1970s, teal and turquoise were heavily used.Now those colors look dated.

The 1980s lent a lot of earth tones to commercial stretches of land.

She sees a trend of renovation going into those dated areas.

Today's Tuscan palette is identifiable, too, she says.

One day it, inevitably, will be dated.Meanwhile, the burnt orange, venetian red, raw sienna, and cedar green at 920 Matley stands out as a new color on the block.

Lively.