New owners of historic Reno building plan renovation, rebrand for summer 2021

RENO, Nev. — For a few years, Tomi Jo Lynch, managing director with SVN Gold Dust Commercial Associates in Reno, had been eying a historic building set where Reno’s Downtown ends and Midtown begins.

So, when the 88-year-old property tucked on the corner of California Avenue and South Virginia Street became available for purchase, Lynch wasted no time jumping at the opportunity.

In November, Lynch and fellow SVN managing director Thomas Johnson, along with a partner, Jurgensen Limited Partnership, acquired the mixed-use building at 24 California Ave.

According to the Washoe County Assessor’s Office, the new owners bought the property for $1.875 million from 24 Cal LLC, via Blackfire Real Estate Investors.

“The main thing about the building is its location,” Lynch said in a phone interview with the NNBW. “It’s an interesting building that I think has a lot of potential from an aesthetic standpoint, but when you’re on the corner of Virginia Street and California Avenue, I can’t think of a better intersection in downtown Reno, so that’s really what drove us to this building.”

Lynch said the new ownership is planning renovations to highlight the historical aspects of the building — which most recently was home to Newman’s Deli before the restaurant closed in 2018 — and “restore it back to its original glory,” including exposing its original red brick, wood beams and structural steel.

SVN says the project, which will feature installation art in the form of a steel DNA strand, has been rebranded as “The Strand @ 24 Cal.” The property will also include a shared outdoor patio, landscaping and murals.

Lynch said ownership envisions the site’s largest available space (roughly 5,000 square foot) to be used as office space.

The five remaining open spaces range from approximately 900 square feet to 1,900 square feet, which Lynch imagines would be filled by retail stores and a bar and/or fast-casual restaurants, such as a juice bar or bakery.

“Most of the spaces are designed to have minimal seating and really cater to the growing demand for takeout and dining outside,” said Lynch, noting the shared outdoor patio would be heated.

Renovation of The Strand, which includes 28 shared parking spaces, is planned for completion sometime this summer, said Lynch, who noted the building’s previous owner was halfway through renovating the property and had similar plans.

To that end, she said a lot of the infrastructure work has already been done — from putting in new fire sprinklers to installing shared restrooms for tenants.

“Our goal is to get the exterior all done, get the parking lot done, the patio done, the landscaping done,” Lynch said. “And there’s going to be installation art and murals. We just really want to get it looking really polished on the outside and then we can start having tenants hopefully open for the summer of this year.”

Lynch said they do not yet have any tenants lined up for the 10,000-plus-square-foot property, but she has received “considerable” interest and activity since its spaces were listed in early January.

“We feel pretty confident about it,” Lynch said. “And we also feel — and we’re hoping — that our timing is really good with the vaccine coming out to have this open in the summer.”