Lakeridge Tennis Club Redevelopment Update
Lakeridge Tennis Club was once Northern Nevada’s largest multipurpose facility, offering year-round indoor and outdoor tennis and swimming as well as a fitness center, aerobics studio, basketball, racquetball, squash, Zumba and Pilates. The Club had a dining room open to the public with indoor and outdoor seating offering views of tennis games in progress. It was home to the Lakeridge Swim Team, which trained many future athletes who ultimately became members of the US Olympic Swim Team. Membership was open to anyone and the Club was considered a quasi-public facility because it served the fitness and recreational needs of citizens and provided financial assistance and scholarships to those in need.
The owner of the Club decided in 2019 to sell the property to an LLC that included local developer Reno Land, Inc.. Naturally, many of the Club’s 700+ members as well as members of the public were highly concerned about the potential outcome of the property, since it had been rumored that the Club was facing financial difficulties. To assuage concerns, Reno Land held meetings attended by over 200 members of the Club and the public and assured them that some of fitness and recreational facilities such as swimming pools and tennis courts would remain on approximately half of the site, while the other half would be used to build senior housing. Chip Bowlby, Reno Land’s President and CEO, stated “[w]e’re looking forward to continuing to work on Lakeridge and revitalizing this 40-year-old iconic property in the heart of Reno…” (RGJ, 9/29/2019). With this assurance, most attendees of those meeting left satisfied that at least some of the Club’s facilities would be retained.
Not long after, Reno Land applied for a zoning change. Previously, the zoning was classified as “SPD”, which was specifically crafted to permit the uses required for the Club to operate along with some existing apartments. The “SPD” zoning class could have been amended to accommodate additional uses that were not originally anticipated. However, Reno Land was able to convince Reno’s City Council that a change in zoning to “CC”, or Community Commercial was more suitable. During Reno’s 9/23/2019 City Council meeting, Andy Durling, vice president of planning for Wood Rodgers (the local engineering firm hired for the project), convinced City Council to grant CC zoning because of the flexibility is provided for future uses, stressing “This SPD is very antiquated”. Durling went on to state “By infilling additional residential around (Lakeridge Tennis Club), it provides that economic shot in the arm. This is a mechanism to improve it and bring it back to its glory.” (ibid.) As can be expected, in light of the former promises made in public by Reno Land, few citizens were concerned and did not attend the meeting to protest the change in zoning.
Unfortunately, once commercial zoning was granted, Reno Land soon changed their plans for the site. Instead of retaining approximately half of the former Club, their new plans called for complete demolition of the Club and replacing it with 350 apartments crammed into eight four-story buildings on the 9.3 acre site. Astonishingly, the developer claimed that the residents of those 350 apartments would create less traffic than traffic caused by the average of 100-150 daily Club visitors, and thus traffic congestion on South McCarran, and particularly at intersection of Lakeside and McCarran, would decrease. Moreover, the developer claimed that 392 parking spaces provided on the property were more than enough for those 350 apartments. However, new site plans only need a review done by Reno’s planning staff under current municipal codes. After granting the developer waivers under Reno’s parking requirements and overlooking mistakes in developer’s traffic study, the planning staff granted approval to the new plans.
At that point, nine individuals stepped forward to appeal the planning staff’s decision, arguing that the new plans did not meet Reno’s codes. An independent Hearing Officer, appointed by the city, found overwhelming evidence that those citizens were correct. Since the developer was unable to secure a building permit at that point, it appealed to City Council to overturn the Hearing Officer’s decision.
The appeal to City Council was on its agenda for August 26, 2020, and all sides were prepared to argue their cases in front of Council. Hundreds of letters, emails and voicemails were sent to the city in advance from citizens opposed to the project. However, less than 5 hours before the meeting, the developer withdrew their plans and as a result the developer’s appeal was not heard. At this point it is suspected that the developer will wait until after the upcoming November elections and resubmit plans, knowing the possibility that those Council members running for re-election will be less concerned after the election about voting in alignment with the wishes of their constituents. Stay tuned!
This blog post was submitted by Jim, one of the LDC21-00036 Appellants.