While bringing an estimated 1000 housing units to the area and redeveloping the old Park Lane Mall area I remember visiting when I was kid, let’s make it clear: the Reno Experience District orchestrated by California-based developer Lyon Living will not alleviate the affordable housing crisis. In fact, the “luxury housing” and “luxury leasing” could make it worse, raising prices in surrounding areas and creating more gentrification.
According to their website, studio apartments will cost between $1400 and $1800 a month. A two bedroom apartment starts at an unattainable for many, $2200 and is less than 1,000 square feet.
I have long known this area and lived in the neighborhood just to the north for over a decade. New shops will soon flood the area, as seen across Plumb Lane with the Casazza Reno Public Market redevelopment already bringing in the Sprouts grocery store, where gum drop grapes will cost you four dollars a pound.
It’s highly unlikely staff will be able to afford a place here.
On a recent late afternoon, I walked around the complex to get a feel for what it would be like to live where a parking lot and town mall once stood. Traffic ebbed and flowed as rush hour began and the sun was nearing mountains in the west. Behind a cloth draped chain link fence, cinder block walls and wooden frames crawled towards the clouds. Building vertically is often a great way for developers to maximize profit as it allows more units to be tightly packed onto the land.
The northern portion is planned to begin after the completion of phase one which includes the luxury apartments known as Emory and Basecamp, both located closer to the Century movie theater. There will also be a fitness club, climbing wall, and a small park in the future.
But who is going to purchase these apartments? According to the 2020 census, the average income for residents in the Truckee Meadows is barely $58,000, which would make living here for most eat up more than half their income on rent alone.
As traffic whirled by, I noticed a woman pushing a shopping cart with her belongings behind one of the recently redeveloped bus stops. It made me pause and think about how the unhoused community is struggling to find a place here in town even as more development takes place of luxury apartments that only the upper class can afford. It brought another question to mind, what is Reno becoming and who are we leaving behind?