Midweek

– Belvedere – A unit was just listed “Back on Market” today. 7 units went NOS today, all serviced by Reconstruct, all part of the backlog of pre-foreclosure properties in the pipeline but on hold due to the lien problems. 2 more units bought by what appears to be the original developer as TDs: 7-462-08 for $19,801, and 7-464-11 for $7000 (based on a HOA lien of $6033 against FHA).

– King’s Inn – a new NOS was filed today, after yesterday’s scheduled Trustee’s Sale was once again cancelled. NOSs are only good for 1 year, and this one timed out. I sure hope the Trustee in this sale is working on T&M, or else they are losing their shirt.

– CommRow – Reno City Council approved the new bond deal with DEPFA that allows the sale of the land under the Fitz Garage today, apparently under duress of threatened law suits if they didn’t. Nando took off out of the meeting immediately after like he had eaten bad sushi. Watch the meeting!

– Cal Neva Garage – The proposed sale of the garage to Reno for $10,000 got postponed for at least 60 days. Check out what doofus has to say at DTM.

– Reno has a live web cam trained on the arch. It is also really fun to track who (if anyone) is climbing the wall at CommRow.

Washoe Foreclosure Web Site – WOW, and thanks to reader Perry for the tip that this exists. It is really easy to click through and see how the foreclosures turned out. I can track the data back to mid 2009, but not sure exactly what the start date on the data is. My take-away is just how many properties that I tracked in the foreclosure process ( Verdi, Somersett, Old Southwest) never went TD, just disappeared, went short, or went deed in lieu. DILFs are something that no one is tracking.

– 1760 and 1560 Manzanita hit the market for $1.8M and $2.8M. Sure, it’s complicated with other properties involved, but can anyone tell me were the $17M Deed of Trust came from?

– In a weird coincidence, one of the NOSs at the Belvedere is a party that recorded a purchase of a property at a TD today. CW has got the cash to buy and flip, and I can’t really fault the decision to walk on the Belvedere “investment”. Still, if I can track these sort of transactions, why can’t the banks/servicers/agencies/IRS?

20 comments

  1. Phil

    The Kings Inn. That place has been rotting in downtown Reno for longer than some of the readers of this blog have been alive. Gerald Ford was the POTUS when that placed closed down. It stands as such a landmark to everything that has gone wrong, and stayed wrong, with downtown Reno for the last 35 years.

  2. Matthew

    The gentleman who owns both those properties on Manzanita also owns more. It’s a long-term investment strategy / hobby. If either of those properties sell, you should expect the other to come off the market. The DoT is related to the fact that the property was a part of one of many significantly larger family trusts.

    Regarding Belvedere, the HOA was voting recently to make a large special assessment on the units. I presume the vote passed and now we will see even more NOSs as banks flee and the developer/holding company endeavors to pick them up now that most of the construction liens are vanishing.

  3. Guy Johnson

    Perry, thank you for the link to the Washoe County Foreclosure Map. A lot of good info there.

  4. Cal

    I was downtown at CommRow this afternoon. Nobody was climbing on the wall. Went inside, and it was dead. Hardly anybody there who did not work there.
    Maybe Thursday afternoons are slow in the climbing wall/hotel business?

  5. Comeback Kid

    Cal,

    Sure it’s a slow time of year. But does anyone really believe CommRow is going to succeed? Really?

    I know some of us hope so, but deep down the writing was on the wall before it opened.

  6. Grand Wazoo

    I talked to a guy at work today about CommRow – he is a big climber. He explained it to me this way: summer – everyone is out climbing real mountains, winter – everyone is using a climbing wall indoors. He has no desire to climb at CommRow, and he absolutely does not understand the business plan behind it.

    Maybe there isn’t one.

  7. Celia

    I am trying to be objective about CommRow. So can anybody explain to me how this place is going to make it? It appears to me to be a warmed over edition of the old Fitz, without gambling, with a climbing wall attached. Take away the climbing wall, and is there anybody who thinks the place would survive? So it seems the make it break it piece is the climbing wall. Is that going to be the game changer?

  8. Carleton

    I would like to get the thoughts from blog readers as to whether the Siena or CommRow will go out of business first. What do you all think?

  9. Grand Wazoo

    Perhaps one day, Fernando will look himself in the mirror and say:

    “Maybe I’m not a whiz kid real estate developer after all”.

    I would say that day is coming soon.

  10. Sully

    Carleton, my guess is Comm Row as Siena people have deeper pockets. Additionally, Fernando’s track record is lacking……

  11. big lender

    Fernando just signed a pledge.

    I promise to pay THIS time

  12. Comeback Kid

    I don’t think CommRow will outlast Sienna, but it could be close. What I am glad about is people do this type of thing trying to make something work for money or the betterment of the community.

    But it’s still fun to jab Fernando with the sharp stick now and then. Human nature I guess.

  13. Goodnight_CommRow

    CommRow is a JOKE. Whoever is funding this disaster has more money than sense. Fernando Leal should be laughed out of town. The guy has not had a good business plan since he showed up. I just cannot understand who is putting real money into this guy’s fantasies, but they’re arguably more ignorant than he is. They would have a better chance earning money by re-opening Fitzgerald’s exactly as it was when it was closed down. It’s despicable what this moron, and others, have done to downtown.

  14. GreenNV

    I’ll take CommRow over Siena in the dead pool. A post here had Siena bleeding $40K per week. An independent post on DTM said $250K per month. The hubris of the new ownership is pretty outrageous. Barny Ng couldn’t make the Siena work even without mortgage payments to Dad and even when the casino was shut down. The Lake Mill shouldn’t have been seen as the enemy, but as a business model for the Siena.

    CommRow’s business model is pretty misunderstood, and they have done a piss poor job communicating to the locals just what they are about. Hubris again, or ineptitude? While Siena hasn’t made any changes that I know of, CR has booted the General Manager and climbing franchisee already.

  15. AKB

    Business model? There is no business model for pissing away 20 some million on a casino at the top of the market and trying to salvage the remains with a food court, climbing wall and nightclub. The business model now is called “break even”.

  16. Phil

    Carleton, I think it could be a close race to the mortuary between the Siena and CommRow. I quite frankly can’t see either one surviving. The Siena is just another casino with absolutley nothing to separate it from any other casino. By all accounts the place is hemorrhaging money, and how long can that go? No matter what kind of a cheap deal the owners got in the BK court, no place can survive that is bleeding to death.
    I agree with GreenNv that the CommRow has done a piss poor job of explaining what the place is supposed to be. I sure as hell do not get it. As mentioned above, the place appears to be no more than the old Fitz with a few cosmetic fixes, sans the gambling, with a climbing wall. I confess I am not a climber and no nothing about it, so I may well be naive about the potential there. But everybody I talk to about it wonders how in the hell a climbing wall can be the golden calf. I’m sorry, but Virginia Street still looks like hell and why in the world would anybody want to stay there?

  17. Raymond

    I will pick the Siena to close down first. The Siena has had a head start in bleeding to death. It may come down to, as Sully suggests, which operator has the deeper pockets. Or more juice. Leal seems to be more politically intertwined with the politicos who may sell the citizens down the river in some favorable tax deal, like the ballpark scam. Hell, if downtown can hand out a favorbale deal to a baseball park, why not a climbing wall?
    I predict that it will be very soon before we see Mr. Leal go to the tax board and argue that the place is assessed too high, and that he should have to pay less property tax.

  18. Grand Wazoo

    CommRow has fired two significant managers before most people in town have any idea what goes on in there and why they should stop by?

    Not good, fire two top people inside of 30 days of the opening? Are you kidding?

    Who would possibly agree to work for the management “team” there now?

    Apparently Fernando must have forgot to fire the people in charge of keeping the windows clean, as I drove by the other day once again the front windows of the joint facing Virginia are filthy. Maybe that’s not important – after all, you only get one chance to make a good first impression, to a real estate developer genius like Fernando, that is not part of the “grand vision”.

    Where on earth does this guy get his money?!?

  19. oldjohnny

    Checking out the principals on his old website, I think I see the answer to Grand Wazoo’s question.
    http://l3devco.com/main.htm

  20. midTN

    ***

    Long time visitor and fan of Reno here. I was able to visit the Siena one day several weeks ago, and quiet honestly I don’t see a lot of improvements. There are some of course, but the building was still as dead as it was with the previous owners. The reality certainly does not match the hype.

    I do not get CommRow at all. It is beyond baffling, but what do I know about wall climbing? I do know that it strikes MANY people I know as being extremely “off the wall” so to speak, for downtown Reno.
    I must state I have not had the pleasure of visiting there, so I cannot speak about it from experience, but it looks like I may not get that opportunity unless I act soon.

    I am not rushing out to buy a plane ticket.

    ***

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *