Specialty Suites could build this spring

The architect and engineer for a proposed three-story hotel on South Carson Street have almost completed their plans.

But whether construction of the 200-room Specialty Suites, originally planned for mid-1999, will start this spring remains uncertain.

"The owner wants to be under construction by summer, but still has some issues he's dealing with," architect Evan Vause of Mark Humphreys Architects of Las Vegas said Tuesday.

Jerry Goeden, representative of Specialty Holding Inc. of Las Vegas, was not available to comment Tuesday.

Specialty Suites would provide long-term accommodations, according to documents submitted to the Carson City Community Development Department. It would be built on the north side of Rhodes Street between Carson and Curry streets, just north of the Wells Fargo Bank branch.

When the proposal came before local officials in October 1998, city staff warned Specialty Holdings representatives that any residence rental longer than 28 days would mean the project would fall under the definition of apartment instead of hotel.

"Multi-family apartment projects require double the parking and substantially more landscaping than hotel projects," a staff report to the city manager and board of supervisors noted after the review. A letter from Specialty Holdings in January 1999 said the hotel's maximum permitted stay would not exceed 28 days.

Project engineer Glen Martel of Lumos and Associates said Tuesday that he had recently resubmitted his plans to the city engineering department.

"I think, if the owners wanted to, they could start construction in three months," Martel said.

Martel told the Nevada Appeal in March 1999 that construction might start in June of that year and the hotel open by December 1999.

"Sometimes the best-laid plans taken much longer than expected," Martel said Tuesday.

The hotel includes a rectangular, three-story main building surrounding a courtyard swimming pool and facing Carson Street . A second building would run parallel to Rhodes Street west of the main building.

The plans submitted to the community development department show 180 "king suites" with two beds, 12 two-bedroom suites and eight handicapped-accessible suites, with 208 parking spaces.

The building would be finished in white or light cream-colored stucco with a brick-red roof, a drawing submitted to the city shows. The hotel would incorporate 134,825 square feet of space, the site plans show.