The Reno Tahoe Visitor Center is a collaboration between the RSCVA, the City of Reno and Reno eNVy, whose owner, Scott Dunseath, saw an opportunity to get more tourists excited about Reno Tahoe USA.

“After the City of Reno allowed us to move Reno eNVy’s location to Sierra Street, I immediately noticed an increase in foot traffic and the influx of visitors, especially families coming in from out of town,” said Dunseath. “Many visitors were looking for more information on the area, and it became apparent that a visitor center could be a great benefit to the community and to those unfamiliar with Reno Tahoe.”

The visitor center will contain promotional information provided by the RSCVA, as well as other Reno Tahoe businesses and attractions.

As with most ground breaking ideas in the community, this didn’t come from the City or the local hotel/casinos or even the RSCVA. It’s the brainchild of Reno Envy owner Scott Dunseath, who saw an opportunity and took the time to start conversing with local agencies about it. The planning process took Scott down two parallel paths, working with the RSCVA to see if the idea was even feasible, and working with the City of Reno to find a home for it.

The RSCVA latched onto the idea like a three-year-old latches onto a fresh lollypop.  Scott was told by the RSCVA that a visitors center is mentioned in their charter, but that they have always lacked the funds to do build and maintain one.

He also soon discovered  dozens of agencies, from the Dept. of Wildlife to the county parks and rec dept, eager to participate and  ready to feed Scott content such as brochures, pamphlets and other material that never see the light of day because of a local monopoly on tourist brochure stands.

There’s one company in particular (I forget the name) that is responsible for installing and maintaining all those tourism brochure stands you see in hotels, motels, and some restaurants in town. If you have something to offer tourists, and want your brochure on their display, you have to pay up. If you are a hotel or restaurant, and you want a set of brochures to offer tourists as they walk in or out or your establishment, you have to pay this company for that privilege. It’s a HUGE barrier to promoting regional tourism.

So you can imagine the excitement when many of these government agencies, who have stacks of unused brochures and tourist info, found out from Scott Dunseath   their tourism literature may finally have a home and see the light of day.

The visitors center will be located in the rear portion of Reno Envy’s store on Sierra Street. Reno Envy leases the very front portion of a much larger space, while the City of Reno controls the back of the space. After months of negotiating, the City of Reno, RSCVA and Scott crafted a deal that benefits everyone the best. There was preliminary talk of locating the visitors center in the old CitiCenter site, but the RSCVA and Scott both felt that location was too far north to achieve decent foot traffic.

New visitor center signs will go up in front of Reno Envy, and the store and visitors center will be one continuous open space. In addition, Scott is working with Nevada Dept of Transportation to put ‘Tourist Info’ signs on I-80′s signs indicating downtown freeway exits, and working with RTC to install directional tourist center signs on Virginia Street as well.

Scott, who is also now vice-president of the Reno Riverwalk Merchant’s Association, will maintain the visitor’s center, thus helping the RSCVA and City of Reno from having to put out money to staff it.

I’m really excited about this for a myriad of reasons. First, it will be a true regional visitors center just a few blocks from where many of our visitors stay; a visitors center that transcends the egos and politics that contribute heavily to this region not being promoted properly. Second, it opens up the region to tourists in a way that’s currently not possible without making said tourist do a ton of research online. As of late, promoting this region’s activities has become a disjointed effort as various organizations look out for their own best interest or their member’s best interests. This includes smaller organizations like the Midtown Merchants Association, the Riverwalk Association, the Cal Ave Merchants Assoc, whose membership-driven structure prevents them from promoting businesses even within their own districts who aren’t members, to more regional agencies like the city Parks and Rec Dept and Dept. of Forestry who lack the funds to dedicate to tourism. And then there are those businesses who don’t fall into any of the district organizations, like Sweet Treats by Kyle and Great Basin Community Food Co-Op.

So having a regional tourism center where ALL of these agencies can feed content to might be the first step in creating a synched vertically-aligned culture of tourism and show tourists that “yeah, we actually want you here and there’s great things to do!”

I look forward to working with Scott myself as well, and seeing how this site and my forthcoming app can partner with our new visitors center.

And to all  local agencies and organizations (this means you, Midtown Merchants Assoc and Wells Avenue Merchant’s Assoc), THE VISITORS CENTER WANTS YOUR INFO! Make sure you drop by Reno Envy and talk to Scott about having your brochures, pamphlets and flyers on display at the visitors center. The more that tourists know about our region, from camp-sites and ski areas to the best restaurants and bars, the better.

Myer, who two weeks ago moved on to the “Battle Rounds” after an electrifying performance of the Alicia Keys song, “No One,” will do battle against Kim Yarbrough in a duet tonight at 8 p.m. on NBC, the website said. Their coach Adam Levine will choose who will advance; the loser goes home.

Yarbrough is a vocalist from Memphis, Tenn., and has been singing and performing since age 7, four decades in all. She sang “Tell me Something Good” by Rufus and Chaka Khan in the first round, the blind audition, where Levine and Christina Aguilera turned around.

According the NBC, the two will sing “No More Drama” by Mary J. Blige tonight, a song released in 2001. Of the 48 singers, including Myer, 24 will move on to the “Live Rounds,” which begin April 2, NBC said.

There will be a viewing party at Great Basin Brewing Co. in Sparks tonight, but Myer, 25, won’t be there. The Whitney Myer Band is playing four concerts in Texas throughout the week.

The former bus station on Fourth and Center streets will host monthly “Food Truck Fridays” starting April 6, which will feature some of the city’s food trucks gathering at the downtown Reno location.

The event will happen every first Friday through October and will feature live music and a beer garden hosted by Sparks-based Great Basin Brewery.

Plans for hosting an event at Reno’s CitiCenter has been in the works for weeks, which included the Reno City Council agreeing to spend about $300,000 from a new hotel room tax to spruce up and reopen the shuttered bus station that closed in October 2010.

The project includes moving the police substation that’s in the National Bowling Stadium over to one of the CitiCenter buildings.

The people behind Reno’s GourMelt food truck posted a blog on Friday about the event:

“The city has spent the last few weeks cleaning up the area, repairing things and hanging lights. It is the perfect spot to have the trucks park and serve with plenty of seating and shade! We have the all of the best food trucks from the Truckee Meadows ready to serve some really great grub. There will be live music each month, featuring quite a diverse lineup. The Tumblebus will be there for the kids to play on.”

The Portlandization of Reno continues.

Vote early and vote often for what you believe are the greatest things to do, see, or experience in all six regions. After five rounds of intense voting mayhem, each region will be left with one winning treasure still standing.

Share your Nevada love by participating. Consider it a friendly competition between your family, friends, or co-workers!

For more information you can visit DiscoverYourNevada.com.

She waited 20 years to get an opportunity to strut her stuff in Hollywood. It took about 25 seconds to get her foot in the door.

Myer advanced to the next round of the reality show on Monday night after she impressed all four celebrity judges in her blind audition.

The standing-room only crowd of friends, fans and family at Great Basin Brewing Co. in Sparks stood and applauded Myer for her solid rendition of Alicia Key’s “No One.”

“It’s definitely surreal,” said Myer, who kept secret the results of the show because of NBC rules. “It’s so cool. I’m flabbergasted right now. Even though I know what happened, it’s so nice to see the community support me like this. It really means a lot to me.”

Myer was the first contestant to sing in the show’s final round of blind auditions.

Each of the four judges can choose 12 singers to be on their team. They can’t see the singer, so they make a decision to select the artist on voice alone.

Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine wasted no time, turning his chair around a half-minute into the performance.

In the span of 45 seconds, Cee Lo Green, Blake Shelton and Christina Aguilera all turned their chairs around in that order, a feat rarely done in the show’s second season.

Myer then had to choose a judge to be her coach.

Levine’s pitch had the most impact, Myer said, as he said “You could win this whole thing. I know you can. I promise to do anything in my power to help you do that.”

Levine was the winning coach in last year’s season.

“That was definitely the thing that meant the most to me,” said Myer, rocking light-red curly hair with black, ripped stockings and high heels. “I wasn’t sure who I was going to choose, but when he said that, if he believes in me that much, of course I chose him.”

Myer and the 47 other singers to move on now enter the battle round. The coaches will group their singers in two’s, and they will sing a duet.

The coach will choose the best of their final 12 to move on to the live-stage shows.

Myer couldn’t say when the battle round starts.

With city approval of a permit for a larger balcony for the building facing Virginia Street, Leal said work on the climbing wall would start in late February and end with a summer grand opening. About 150-200 people would be employed.  The first two floors of the former hotel-casino built in 1976 have been gutted.  Entre-Prises, which built the climbing walls for the Royal Caribbean Line cruise ships, is designing the wall to meet national and international standards, said Antoine Richard, company chief executive officer, who was in Reno this week.  His French company was the first to build artificial climbing walls in 1985, has since built 4,000 of them and has a manufacturing and design operations in Bend, Ore.  But this is their first wall over a tall building. And his associate Adam Koberna said it will be the world’s tallest.  “Pretty much,” he confirmed.

A 7,000-square-foot bouldering park is planned for the second floor of the former hotel-casino that closed in 2008. Using imitation rocks, holds can be bolted into different areas of the rocks so the color-coded routes can be changed, Richard said.  Eight to 10 professional rock-climbing competitions are anticipated each year with each drawing 750 to 1,500 participants. The X Games and the “Amazing Race” television also will be pursued, Leal said. Rocksport Reno, which operates the only local climbing wall gym, will manage the climbing wall and bouldering park.

The National Federation for Sports Climbing is working to make it an Olympics event. The current world record is climbing 46 feet in 8.6 seconds.  “People fly up the wall,” Richard said.  The new wall could be part of a new kind of tourism that could take shape downtown, where casinos have been hit hard by the long recession and Indian casinos’ competition in California.

The wall fits Reno’s former America’s Adventure Place theme, Gary Carano, Silver Legacy general manager, said.  “I think it’s super exciting for Reno,” he said. “It just hits the America’s Adventure Place right in the bulls eye.”

Councilman Dave Aiazzi said the wall would be used to expand existing downtown events or starting new ones, citing several dozen Santas huffing and puffing up the wall with bags of goodies for the annual Santa Pub Crawl or Superman and Batman could scale the walls for the start of the annual Super Hero crawl.  Leal said he supports all that.  “This is about fun,” he said.  Aiazzi said the wall also builds on the city’s whitewater park that first began to bring young people downtown before the recession put a halt to a number of projects.  “This will help bring that energy back downtown. More people are moving into the Montage and we’ve had a lot of new restaurants opening in the last six months,” Aiazzi said.“This can only be good for everybody down here,” said Tom Christ, Harrah’s Reno entertainment and public relations director.  Even before he heard about the climbing wall, he said Harrah’s was planning to bring back more entertainment on its plaza this summer. The giant stage was empty last summer between the Fourth of July and Hot August Nights.   Having music on the plaza while people watch the climbers across the street at CommRow, he said, is even better.

Leal said he and partner Donald Wilson tried for two years to gain interest in developing Fitzgeralds as a boutique hotel while others looked at the property for gaming.  “But we never got a deal we could put together,” he said.  While building the Montage, later taken over by banks and then sold, Leal said a rock-climbing wall was one idea being explored for part of that building.
And since his move to Reno from Chicago a few years ago, he has gone from being a “city boy” to an outdoorsman and biking to keep in shape.  Pursuing the climbing wall and bouldering park was a natural.

“I’m having fun,” he said.  He and his partner are investing their own money in the project. They control DRW Fitzgerald Real Property LLC, the property owner.  He said union shops will be hired to do about 90 percent of the renovation work.

The Reno-Tahoe Open Foundation is proud to announce the date for the 3rd annual Noodle This! pasta feed to benefit the Nevada Military Support Alliance, coming up Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at the Eldorado Hotel Resort.

Join us at this festive event featuring celebrity guest waiters that will serve your table of 8 and compete for gratuities that will be directly donated to the Nevada Military Support Alliance.  Past celebrity servers have included Reno and Sparks mayors Bob Cashell and Gino Martini, news anchors Shelby Sheehan and Kristen Remington and LPGA legend Patty Sheehan, just to name a few, and over $28,000 was raised in 2010 for the selected charity.

Tables of 8 cost just $1,500 and your guests will be treated to an evening of Eldorado’s famous pasta, endless wine and of course, excellent conversation with your guest celebrity waiter when he or she sits with you and your guests to ‘noodle’ current events.