Q: How does Riverside compare to other projects you have worked on?
WL: Oh, gee. All our projects are wonderful projects. And I've got a lot of good things to say about them all. And I'm always the most emotionally attached to the one I'm in the midst of battle on at any given time. And, that's Reno right now. So I put my objective hat on and it's going to cash flow. It's going to be exceeding affordable rents. It's going to create very stable, long-term high quality space for artists to live and work. I feel great about that. I'm proud about that. It rates there with the best of our projects. On the less sort of pragmatic side, our partnership with Sierra Arts is probably one of the best, if not the best partnership we have. They are a fantastic organization. They compliment what we do perfectly. Their programming, they're grassroots, they're really interested in bringing arts to the surface in the community of Reno. Which allows us to really focus on this sort of hard business of real estate development and asset management. So it's a very complimentary partnership. The personalities really like each other and work well together. So on that side, it's a really nice arrangement. So what I look forward to is a project that is going to be a beautiful show piece physically. It's going to serve its mission wonderfully. It's going to build capacity in a local arts organization. You know we're going to be really proud of it. It's going to right up there with our best projects, you know in that genre, in the live/work mixed use genre that we develop.

Q: The third partner?
WL: I've gotten to know a lot about local politics now, in the last two years in Reno. And they have … I feel like there are some key people, the mayor certainly and uh key people on the city council that have a vision. I think they've paid a political price in that town now for having a vision. People who survive in Reno tend to be historically have not sort of put their stake in, if you will, and said this is the path. I'm grateful to some key … to the key individuals in city government that believed in us from day one. The mayor was one. Dave Aiazzi was another. They believed in us from day one and helped make all this possible. And that vision and that leadership filtered all the way down through, I think, city staff in a multitude of different departments, and we had a very positive experience with people stepping up and taking a "can-do" positive attitude to help pull this thing together. As you know, it was really challenging because we needed to pull pieces so many different sectors, from affordable housing sector. And even within affordable housing there's three or four different resources and we had to get a little help from all of them. And then there's the historic community that we needed help and support, and the arts & culture community. I mean we got help from everybody. Everyone pitched in and it's the only way things happen. I know there's a lot of turmoil in Reno about, "Is this the right path and is the vision strong enough?" All I can really do is speak to our experience. And our experience … and we work in a lot of different communities as you know now … my experience, I think the city stepped up in a first rate fashion. And they helped make this happen, and they believed in it. And it wouldn't have happened if they didn't. And uh, and I think it's a really good, strong, permanent fixture now, right on the corner of Virginia and the river which really can set the tenor if you will, for what will be a more local oriented so of arts and culture development district. You know I'm hopeful. I think there are good things that are starting to happen.

Q: Leave a message to do more?
WL: No, we leave more than a message. We stay around and nag. I was chatting with Charles McNeeley at our event just the other day, and started elbowing him in the rib saying, "Well, we're almost done which means we can start talking about what's next." And uh … (laughs) City manager if I didn't make that clear. And he laughed and he said, "Absolutely. Let's talk about what's next." We were all focused on making this happen. And um, … Artspace's vision in all the communities we work in is, you now, it's never really over. I mean to the extent that there are always opportunities and a desire for our development, we always want to play that role if we can. I think the city is still interested in what other possibilities are there. I think we will continue our dialogue. Our asset strategy is pretty hands on. We're going to have people in Reno on a regular basis. And uh, meeting with our partners there and our artists there and community, encouraging if you will the artists in the building to do outreach and be interactive with the community at large. We have kind of a whole program strategy about that and how we work with the artists to encourage that. And along with that we'll keep our contacts with the city, continue to explore other possibilities, and just dialogue in general and an on-going basis … as we do here in St. Paul, as we do in Minneapolis, as we do in all the other communities that we want to work in. You know, we want to sort of keep it going. See how it goes.

Q: Will you become an absentee landlord?
WL: Absolutely not. That is not … that is not our asset strategy at all. Our asset strategy is pretty high profile, pretty involved, pretty engaged. And that partly why … if we wanted to be an absent landlord we wouldn't seek out partners like Sierra Arts. We wouldn't build relationships, you know, with an organization that's sort of vested in that community and nurture that if we didn't think we were going, you know, to be pursuing that on a long term basis. Otherwise, we'd just kind of do our thing, you know, let a professional management company take care of it and be gone. So that partnering is all part of that strategy to make sure that we keep the ball rolling, and keep arts development on the rise.

Q: Tell me about Jill Berryman.
WL: Jill Berryman? What is she like? Jill Berryman is wonderful. And I can't even be objective about it because she has become a very dear friend of mine through this roughly three years that we have worked together. And I loved her predecessor, Pat Smith also. And since Jill has sort of taken over she's worked really hard. She's learned so much about real estate development. I'm sure she's amazed. Um, but she has a really broad vision. She wants the arts to have a raised profile in Reno, in the community, and to give as much as possible. I think she recognized that this project could help do that, not just for the arts but for Sierra Arts in particular. Um, so I think she a good, very good, vibrant, energetic leader. She's had a personal setback as you may know of late. And she is fighting through that in the same determined and positive fashion that she sort of approaches life. So this is not going to be the impartial analysis, obviously. I think she's wonderful.

Q: Tom Pellett?
WL: Tom Pellettt? You know, Tom Pellett and I have bumped head on numerous occasions on this project but he is, uh … he's got a hard job to do. He's got to listen to me whine and complain everyday about my cost going up and at the same time listen to his sub contractors all whine and complain about not getting paid enough. He's in the middle and he tries to work through that every day with a steady hand. He did it, I think, with a certain determination. And that's not to say that everything was easy for us. I mean we had our hard moments but I respect him and Q&D very much. I respect them for hanging in there through a difficult project. In the end they delivered it. In the end I would never hesitate to do business with them again. And I would quite frankly prefer to do it with Tom Pellett again. I think he did a good job. He delivered a hard project. We had all those asbestos concerns, which delayed timelines. We lost six to eight weeks. He caught us up. There are some very good things that he did under very difficult circumstances. So all good. Again.

Q: About the asbestos.
WL: It was a big setback. It was more money. Um, was it inconsistent with my experience? Absolutely not. Old buildings have tons of surprises. Asbestos is right up there at the top end. And you know, if I'd been surprised by anything in my 15 years in doing this kind of work, it's that there's always something to learn about some bizarre place no one ever would have thought someone would have put asbestos way back when. Um, you know, it happened to us at the Riverside. The issue there is city employed a firm to go in and try to abate as much as they could. But as you know, there were tons of small rooms in there. It was set up as a resident hotel. You know unless you were going to fully demolish everything inside, which didn't happen until we started, you weren't going find it all. So we knew we'd find some. We just found an awful lot more than we thought. We also found a ton of pigeon feces that also had some really difficult environmental issues. This gets a little abstract but that's dangerous stuff and you have to treat that difficulty. And that was also a problem. So yeah it's a setback but city worked with us. The city held true to their commitments. They didn't … they had a commitment to say that if there's other asbestos we'll deal with that but we knew we had to deal with the pigeon issue and everyone, you know … people could have weaseled around, no one did. We took care of the pigeon issue. The city stepped up and addressed the asbestos issue. Everybody was big boys about it, lived up to the spirit of the deal as quickly and we can and then try to make tracks and get back on schedule.

Q: Were you happy with how it's turned out?
WL: Yeah. You know, I'll be happier in two months. You know, for me it never feels even … it just doesn't feel all done until the residents, the artists are in their spaces. And it starts to feel done to me because all our other buildings when I go see them have the vibrancy of the artists and their world in the space. So the spaces look very un-done to me simply because nobody is living in them. But I'm happy with the product happy with the product. We sort of loop back to that. I'm happy with product, happy with the natural light .I'm happy with the kinds of heating systems, which allows everyone to very much control their own environment -a good, solid, safe building. And we hit all the big liabilities, so it's set up to really prosper. To keep rents affordable. So I'm really happy with it. I am nervous about … to the extent that I'm always nervous … I'm nervous about I want to make sure we get really good, positive commercial tenants in there on the first floor, to share that first floor with Sierra Arts. That's still open business, not done yet. So if I have any anxiety it's about how those will take shape because they're very visible obviously cause they're the two big corner spaces. But other than that I'm really very happy with it. Given how hard the resources for this kind of project is to bring together, I'm really happy with our end results.

Q: How was the proposal for a Reno project received?
WL: I'll get in trouble for saying this but I remember that because o.k. We're going to go to Reno. You know, we have these two women, Pat Smith, Jill Berryman, up here, begging us to go. They scrape up some money. They talked the city into paying … pull some money together to bring us out and shouldn't say this now cause I have so many dear friends but I remember the sentiment in the office, it was like Reno? I'm not going there. (laughs) Forget it. And I wasn't the only one saying that. And essentially Deirdre got stuck with it. So, like o.k. So Deidre's gone. So Deirdre goes out to Reno. We didn't know anybody, you know? I mean, we didn't know anything at that point. So Deirdre goes out and looked at the two buildings and did...what we do early on, kind of sizing up the political environment, the financial environment, and the physical environment, and the art community environment. This is the four arenas we need to get a first impressions of. And felt good about most of them, and was really confused about these two buildings, and the drama around the two. Hence, since I'm the building guy that's why I'm on the second trip. So at that point it's no longer an option. My "I'm not going to Reno" got turned into "Yes, you are." And so I went. And, you know we toured the two buildings. Our own assessment, independent of all the other drama about that, is the Riverside is a good, solid, structural building. And that the Mapes had structural challenges that might, at that time, might be had to overcome. Our decision got made very early and we chased the Riverside. As it turned out, those challenges were hard to overcome, and ultimately the Mapes was demolished. We made a fairly early assessment. That's part of my bailiwick at ArtSpace. You now, I look at hundreds of old building, you know, throughout any given year. Um, my eye has gotten pretty good about what we can bring back and what we can't for the kind of dollars we can go find. So we … literally, Deirdre and I on the airplane ride home had an old floor plan and we sketched out our unit configuration. It's the exact same one we have there today. Oddly enough. Refined by architects and improved but the same basic pattern in round numbers on that 35 unit scenario, with the commercial space on the first floor, just scratched out on the plane ride home. And it went from there.

Q: You were intrigued by the Riverside past.
WL: You know, I do like that. I … there's part of me that enjoys art development, but there's also part of me that really likes historic preservation and this whole adaptive use concept. You know, historic preservation without a vital reuse, um, doesn't work ultimately. Um, so the whole idea of finding a really good viable reuse for historic structures is what I think we do and hope we do. And what I like about that is instead of these building disappearing they have some buildings in particular embodied sort of wonderful historical stories about a town. I think the Riverside is much more exciting than the Mapes. The Mapes was certainly had kind of a wonderful, in its heyday as a casino, it certainly had some neat people there but the story mostly is of a person who built a bad building and made as much money out of it as they and uh you know moved on. And when the story around the Riverside is really kind of neat. Because it was not only a casino but it also links into this divorce hotel piece. So it mirrors several significant historical, what are very unique historic facts or realities about Reno and its growth over time that are all part of that building's history. And the fact that it went from those fairly distinctive things and is now going to be sort of a center and I hope a seed for a growing arts development era. That just feels good to me. I mean it just feels like kind of a nice symmetry there that I like. Yeah, so I talk about that. I'm excited about that. You know we do a lot of stuff that is all factually based and is very analytical in our jobs but it's not necessarily what I get excited about when I come to work. And what I get excited about are these intangibles of um defining community through the arts or through history and I think what ArtSpaces does help do that.