Reno: West Street Market Opens

I had the opportunity to show up to the West Street Market on its opening day in Reno today.

The West Street Market has been labeled a lot of things since its inception:  farmer’s market and urban market being the two most frequently used terms.  In mid-2007 the Nevada Certified Farmers Market Association began having weekly farmer’s markets at Reno City Plaza.  Almost immediately, the call went out to have the market be a permanent fixture of downtown, and city government got behind using the redevelopment agency to create such a market.

This blog in particular assumed that a permanent market was years off, but it turned out that not even a year and a half after the successful completion of the first season of summer weekend markets, a new venue would be opened downtown to serve this purpose.

That venue is the West Street Market.

The market’s story is an interesting one.  There were several good locations in downtown Reno for such a market.  This blog suggested the old soup kitchen property along the train trench, but the RDA found the former carriage houses of Ross Manor, almost directly adjacent to the city’s great West Street Plaza, to be a very welcoming location.  Despite this blog’s concerns about the effects of taking out The Green Room, it seems that The Green Room was gone before the market plans materialized.  And when those plans materialized, they came to fruition with a degree of rapidity seen only in other Reno projects like the baseball stadium.  In short, renovating the buildings, stripping them to their rustic brick, and outfitting them with a brutalist style of interior design was the order of the day.  Businesses from around Reno would step in to do the rest in the form of establishing themselves as anchor tenants.

This beautiful day in December proved to be the day that it all came together.  Someone intimately familiar with the market’s tenants and with other markets could probably become jaded in short order – it’s not that big a market.  But for Reno, it is quite something.  It feels cavernous inside and capable of hosting a variety of special events.  One thing that must be done for such a venture to thrive is to make every day feel like a special event.  It remains to be seen if that will happen.

However, services in the market – bakery, deli, more when build-out is complete – will prove invaluable to nearby residents.  It seems as though the cart was not put before the horse in this case.

It will be important for the remaining tenants in the market yet to open – Downtown Marketplace among them, and it will be probably more important for Reno to show up and support this endeavor.  One thing that cannot be understated is that Reno must begin producing a “WHERE” magazine or equivalent for distribution into hotel rooms.  Tourists must be made aware of, and seek out, the market and river corridor.  This will have an outsized impact on the entire enterprise.

Comments

[Kyle Weiss]

The last paragraph is perhaps the most important thought of all, and I hope it is taken seriously by more people than (us?)...

KW

[DowntownMakeoverDude]

Great article Ken! I agree with you 100%. I was there too opening day, too bad we didn't run across each other! Anyway, I continually go to Brickhouse Bakery because they offer giant fresh baked pastries for $2.00, less expensive than Starbucks' drive-up-from-Sac-frozen-then-thawed pastries.