Museum Tower fully leased

Museum Tower, the 12-story office building next to the Nevada Museum of Art, is fully leased a mark that apparently hasn't been reached by a high-rise office building in the downtown area for more than five years.

The law firm of McDonald Carano leased an additional 5,000 square feet in the building and Pindi Products leased about 4,300 square feet. The law firm of Bruce and Trachok leased nearly 3,000 square feet, a sales office for the Arterra condo project planned across Liberty Street leased 2,500 square feet on the first floor and a personal training company, Anatomie, leased 3,200 square feet on the ground floor.

The leases were negotiated by Colliers International.

When the building was purchased for $20 million in late 2004 by NBS Real Estate Capital and Capstone Partners, both headquartered in Portland, Ore., it stood 18 percent vacant.

The new owners put $750,000 into upgrades ranging from expansion and renovation of lobby areas to installation of a new fire system as well as the purchase of new aerobic equipment for a fitness center that's available to the building's tenants.

They also renamed the building that had been known as the Porsche building after the automaker whose U.S. offices occupied the structure after it was built in 1989.

Even though the building is 17 years old, it's the newest high-rise office building in the downtown area. That helped draw tenants, said Tim Ruffin, an office broker with Colliers International.

Chris Nelson of Capstone Partners said the building's owners also benefited from the resurgence of business activity in the financial district south of the Truckee River.

"The ground floor took longer to fill than we had thought," he said. "But it's nice to watch the neighborhood grow up around us."

Within a couple of blocks of Museum Tower, Nelson said he counts at least 15 new businesses that have sprouted since NBS and Capstone bought the building.

One of those new downtown businesses, Paisan's Old World Deli and Catering, took root on the ground floor of Museum Tower itself. The deli proved to be important as more than a lunch-and-coffee stop, Nelson said.

"It added a little energy and some life to the building," he said.