Longtime vision of Greg retail takes shape

Twenty years ago Don Kajans purchased a lot at McCarran Boulevard and Greg Street that boasted little more than overgrown trees and run-down farmhouses. But Kajans felt the parcel was an attractive site for retail development.

"I had a body shop in the area at one time, and there wasn't really any place you could go to eat," he says.

It's taken years to develop the property, but Kajans recently completed the second phase of the three-phase South Stanford Crossing.

"Traffic on that corner is really great," he says. "The economy gets peaks and valleys. We are in a valley now, and that is time to move in and go."

Terrible's opened a convenience store at the northeast corner of the site and plans to add a car wash,

Kajans says. Starbucks took 1,500 feet in the first phase of development. Uncle Vinny's Pizza and sandwich shop, scheduled to open July 15, took the remaining 3,600 square feet in the first building.

The second phase is split between corner spaces of 1,500 and 1,800 square feet and two interior sites of 1,350 square feet. Capriotti's Sandwich Shop, a Las Vegas-based franchiser, is scheduled to take one of the interior spaces, Kajans says, and he is hoping for a Mexican-style restaurant to take one of the other locations.

The third phase of the project will add 3,300 square feet of retail space with outdoor seating, but Kajans would prefer a bank lease space at the site.

"I do have a building permitted with plans, but chances are it will be changed," he says. "Maybe I have enough restaurants that a bank will look good in there."

Joseph Pace Construction is the general contractor, while Frame Tech of Sparks built the shells. Jeff

Dickson, construction foreman for Frame Tech, says the biggest challenge in completing the framing of the second building was manhandling massive 70-foot roof trusses with only two bearing points at each end of the building. Additionally, the pitch of the roof changed three times throughout the length of each truss.

"They were the biggest trusses that I've rolled," Dickson says. "They were just these big long noodles. I had to set them one at a time, and with the pitch breaks it just made them want to flop over."

Kajans notes that the City of Sparks made him grade the center high enough so it is out of the flood zone of the nearby Truckee River.