Q: Where was the genesis of the Riverside Artists Loft Project?
PS: I think, probably, the genesis was when the Sierra Arts staff and I attended a national convention of Americans for the Arts in Minneapolis. They had offered a field trip to some of us who signed up prior to going to the convention and to go and see some artists lofts. And I had written to them and signed up myself and two staff members, Jill Berryman and Rick Woods, to go on the field trip. And so when we got to Minneapolis and towards the end of the convention it was time to go on the field trip, which we were really dragging our feet and tired of convention activities but decided we signed up, we'd better go. Went through the Northern Warehouse which was I believe the first project that Artspace did in that community, and the Tilsner Building, which is next door and simply fell in love with the concept. At the time we really were not giving any thought to the Riverside Hotel. In fact, we were thinking more of the Mapes — the idea of an old historic building. And so we gave business cards to Kelley Linquist, the president of Artspace, and kind of tantalized him with a suggestion that we had a great old building in Reno if they'd like to come west sometime. And he uh took us up enough on it to come to our hotel the next day and spent an hour talking with us.

Q: So it was kind of a gut thing of wouldn't it be cool?
PS: It was entirely a gut thing. Which looking back on it was really rather gutsy of us We were not in the loop. We had no idea until we returned home that the deadline for people to apply for projects for the Mapes was three days after we got home. And so in contacting people at the Reno Redevelopment Agency it was kind of a "oh, well shucks but you're too late for that but do you suppose they would be interested in another old hotel?" I said well, I don't know but we could call and ask. That led to a conference call that I set up between Kelley Linquist of Artspace and Redevelopment Agency staff to see if there was any interest at all in even pursuing this. There was but it took sometime for then to get from the point to where they came to Reno.

Q: So he liked the idea of the two women selling him on the project?
PS: The one thing he said when he finally um came back out to Reno, which was some time later because it was his staff that came on the first visits, he said he had gone back to the office and uh — Jill Berryman and I were both very assertive with the idea that they really ought to consider Reno if they were going to consider a new location — and he went back to his office and said you just wouldn't believe these two blondes cornered me with this idea and they were just so enthusiastic. So I guess maybe we were a little bit. I don't think we were pushy but we were a little enthusiastic. And really the actual mechanics of what happened after that first phone call to get them to where they came to Reno was really quite a project. Because they're not like a commercial developer that has a war chest so they can go to a community and kind of sniff out potential projects. Artspace is a 501 c-3 non-profit just like Sierra Arts and they don't have a war chest to do that. The communities that want them to consider a project in their communities must foot the bill for them to come out. And so I decided that probably the best approach was to meet individually with each member of the city council, that, you know, get them one at a time, show them pictures, explain to them what we had seen, and encourage them basically put forward the money to bring Artspace to Reno to look at the Riverside. I met with Jeff Griffin who at the time was also a neighbor and at least we had a familiarity of knowing each other. Katy Simon, who was then Katy Simon and is now Katy Singlaub, the Washoe county manager was the board, our board, and arranged a meeting for me to meet with Charles McNeely, who in turn insisted I meet with Dean Oliver, of Oliver McMillian. So it just sort of snowballed. They were willing to spend the money to bring them out. And they went through the Riverside Hotel, the Mapes Hotel and the McKinley Park School at the city's request, and on their nickel. And after that visit they dismissed the Mapes as a viable project. They loved the McKinley Park School as an art center but that was not what we had asked them to come and consider developing. And so the Riverside Hotel they felt was at least worth trying to take some time, put the pencil to it and see if it would pan out financially to do a conversion for reuse of the Riverside.

Q: Was it a hard sell because you have a lot of players in this project?
PS: It was oh, cool idea. I don't recall approaching anyone — and I approached everyone, let me tell you. The downtown improvement association, the Chamber of Commerce, I mean I went to everyone that was not nailed down because the more people you have supporting a project the better. And I never once spoke with anyone who thought it was a bad idea. I think that the reason that Sierra Arts was involved, which is to help artists, was perhaps what made Sierra Arts unique. Not that they're not interested in being helpful to downtown redevelopment and saving historic buildings — that is not the reason they're in business. Sierra Arts is in business to help the arts and to help artists. And they were leaving this community in droves because they could not afford to live here let alone pay to rent studio space, if they could find it here. We were losing incredible talent; it's what I call the right-brain drain. And they would go to other communities where they could afford to live. That's why, that's why Sierra Arts became involved.

Q: Some might argue that this isn't a question of affordable housing for artists, but that Reno faces an issue of affordable housing for all working people.
PS: And we did get some of that. During the year it took to gather seven funding sources — and ArtSpace certainly led that battle, but Sierra Arts was right there and I was up to my armpits in it myself — we did run into people that tried to make an argument that affordable housing is something that all kinds of people need. And we agree that more housing for people in lower income brackets would be needed. Hopefully, we'll, this will set the example that will allow additional affordable housing to go into perhaps historic buildings, which has not been a scenario that this community has ever pursued before. So hopefully to be able to show how to do it right, yes it happens to be for artists but don't forget we're not just talking about painters and sculptors, we're talking about song-writers. We're talking about actors and actresses, musicians. It's a pretty wide scope of individuals who are generally self employed, artists are generally self-employed. That would be the folks generally living at this particular project.

Q: Another argument is that artists are willing to be the urban vanguard in the redevelopment of run-down areas.
PS: Well as I said from the beginning, the one kind of low-income housing that the community likes to have around is artist lofts. And what happens is that when artists live in a concentrated area like what you're going to see is an outpouring of creative product, whether it is that you go to a coffee house or a brew-pub that is down in the area, you're going to see a jazz jam session develop, or there's going to be art hanging on the walls for sale. And there's going to be people doing performance art out on the plaza in front of the Pioneer. Yuu cannot put artists together like that and see a void. You're going to see art all over the place. Because that is what they do. It's not just what they do for a living, it's what they do. And they do lots of it. And it churns out into the community around. In the Tilsner Building, northern warehouse area where the ArtSpace projects were that we visited initially, there was a population of something like 50 or 100 when they went in there to refurbish those two buildings. It was an industrial warehouse area in St. Paul, MN. And now there are over 5,000 people in the area, many of them in the upper end townhouses. It's as if people were flocking to the area where the artists were. It's kind of a neat, cool thing to do to go down there where the artists are and get a latte and read paper and have a bagel and nose around in the used books shop, you know? So it's kind of a way of life that's appealing and crosses over those economic barriers that might be there if it was a different kind of affordable housing.

Q: Throughout the project there have been a number of obstacles thrown in front of you. Did you ever lose enthusiasm for what your were doing?
PS: No, because I just kept my eye on the prize. I guess I've always been known for being kind of tenacious. Plus the thing had sort of developed energy of its own. Once the City Council voted to move forward with this — I believe it was in February, which probably would have been in '98, February of '98 I hope I'm right about that — once they voted to move ahead with it, we had a year basically or a little better to pull together funding to make the project a reality. It's usually at that stage when you run into the roadblocks that are too big and you can't get over them. My theory from the beginning was to just keep moving forward. And if somebody threw up a roadblock that we couldn't get over, well then we'd say we've given it our best. But that never happened. That is not to make light of the hurdles. When your project needs all of the affordable housing grant-dollars that the county gets for that year, all of the low-income tax-credit dollars that your county gets for that year, it is tough. Because there are other developers with viable projects hoping to also get some of that money. The Riverside was one of those once-in-a-lifetime deals. It had to fly in 1999. The funding had to fly then. And it all had to fly in the same year. So the first mortgage had to be secured. A grant, a cultural grant from the state of Nevada had to be secured. We needed almost all the money they were going to put into the city of Reno, you know, from that pot of money. Everything had to be secured. Everybody wanted to be the last dollars so they could say they put it over the top. Everybody wanted to know all the other sources of funding were in place. And so it was a huge undertaking, running around the state to hearings in different parts of the state. And trying to plead our case so that for at least for the one year, the Riverside Hotel would get all those different kinds of funding that it needed to move forward. By golly we made it. And there were times when we didn't think that we would.

Q: Like when?
PS: There were some difficult battles around the low-income tax credit dollars. The first thing we had to battle was the regulations that they used to measure the various applications. And that was hearings all over the State of Nevada. And the poor people from ArtSpace were having to crawl in airplanes and come out from Minneapolis. So it was the Sierra Arts people who were running around the state trying to cover as many of those hearings as possible. Once those regulations were adopted then there was the process of ArtSpace actually making the application, and then it being weighed and given points according to those regulations that we had fought so hard to get. When it came to HUD monies, there was affordable housing dollars that come into Washoe County that are distributed according to a consortium, which is comprised of representatives from Sparks, Reno, and Washoe County. We needed a lot of that money. Of course, Sparks and Washoe County had viable things that they would have liked to use the money for. And we needed their support in order to get our dollars. So there was lots of, lots of work behind the scenes trying to make that dream come true, because any one of those sources we could have adjusted but you lose some of those big ones and you're out of business. If we had lost the low-income tax credit dollars the project would not have moved forward.

Q: And then you do get the money but the project has to come to a halt because of asbestos.
PS: Well, now I'm going to share with you second hand because I retired from Sierra Arts when the money was in place and they were ready to move forward shortly thereafter. The asbestos removal had supposedly been completed prior to our first, first walk through the hotel the first time the ArtSpace representative came out. So I knew about as much as anyone else who read in the newspaper about what happened but I have talked with a person involved in the project who tells me that it certainly, it's too bad. It's not a hurdle that insurmountable. In fact it's rather easily remedied. And um the additional asbestos has to come out because people are going to live in that building. You do apparently remove to a different level if it's going to be demolished, knowing that as long as you get the vast majority of it the rest will go into the air and won't be harmful to anyone. Whereas if someone is going to live in a building you have to be sure that every speck is out. So that's what they're doing. It is, I suppose you could say it is unfortunate they've had to delay and take out more asbestos. And certainly the city and other parties to the project have to work on who pays for what. But there's no question that it's going to be removed. It's being removed as we speak. And the project will start floor by floor as soon as they can get back in there.

Q: How would you describe Will Law?
PS: Will Law? Oh, Will Law is a great, great guy. Let me start just by describing ArtSpace staff generally and then Will specifically. I explained that I met Kelly Lindquist, the president of ArtSpace initially in the summer of '97, I believe it was. And uh was impressed with Kelly and certainly was impressed with the fella that had taken us through on the tours, there was a second person, in the Tilsner Building and the Northern Warehouse. Had no idea that the quality of individual that works for ArtSpace would be as impressive as they are. I have now have seen what I suppose could be the "B" team or the "C" team, um, it's incredible. These people are phenomenal professionals. Will Law, in particular, I am certain could work for somebody than a non-profit for a great deal more money than he does but he loves what he does. And he has that passion to help artists and to further the cause of the arts, and to do it nationwide. To go to where the communities are ready to welcome ArtSpace and work a partnership. Will is incredibly knowledgeable. He's knowledgeable about funding sources, which believe me I learned more every wanted to know. He is just a phenomenal young man. So are all of the other people from ArtSpace that I met. Any group of them, I think, could move in and professionally accomplish the end goal as well as Will and the team that is now going to be working on the hotel.