Plans for a hotel stir again at Robb and Interstate 80

A long-stalled hotel project in west Reno is on its way to coming back to life.

An investment group is in escrow for the purchase of a site at Robb Drive and Interstate 80 that once was planned as the location of an 87-room hotel carrying the Best Western brand.

The new buyers plan a Hampton Inn on the 100,000-square-foot site.

If the buyers are successful with their plans, the hotel would be the first nationally branded business-class facility on Reno's west side. South Meadows has drawn recent development of business hotels.

Dewey Struble, a broker with Sperry Van Ness who is helping to put the deal together, said the potential investors have seen the success of new Hampton Inn locations in South Meadows and Carson City.

"There appears to be a demand for it," he said last week.

The Las Vegas investment group that previously planned a hotel on the property went so far as to complete a pad for the building before the group's plans came unraveled.

It's unknown, Struble said, whether the new plan will be able to use the pad or other improvements on the property.

The buyers hope to complete their due-diligence work and close on their purchase of the land in March, the broker said.

That means that construction could begin next spring with the hotel scheduled for opening in the spring of 2008.