Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel & Spa

Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel & Spa opened on April 5, 2017, inside a riverfront building that had spent the previous decade and a half as the Siena Hotel Casino before its casino floor closed in June 2015. Marriott's first Renaissance-branded property in Reno, the 214-room hotel converted roughly 17,000 square feet of former gaming space into a bocce-court restaurant and event garden.

The place

The hotel sits at 1 South Lake Street on the Truckee River in downtown Reno, a short walk from the Riverwalk District's restaurants and galleries and from the city's casino corridor, without being part of it: the property markets itself explicitly as one of downtown Reno's few non-gaming hotels.

The concept

The building has cycled through three identities on the same riverfront lot. It opened in 1956 as the Holiday Hotel, added gaming within its first year, and ran for four decades before closing in 1998; a $16-20 million renovation reopened it in 2001 as the Siena Hotel Casino, which itself struggled financially, closed in October 2010, sold at a $3.9 million auction to a local investor group, reopened in 2011, and finally shut its casino on June 30, 2015 after the property changed hands again, this time to a Delaware LLC led by developer Fernando Leal. Miles Construction then remodeled all 214 guest rooms, the lobby and roughly 15,500 square feet of convention space, while converting about 17,000 square feet of former casino floor into a restaurant and event center built around seven indoor bocce courts, with a further 9,000-square-foot outdoor garden adding two more courts, a dining area and private event space. The hotel reopened on April 5, 2017 as Reno's first Renaissance Hotels property, with an official grand-opening celebration on May 17.

Dining & wellness

The Shore serves as the hotel's main restaurant and bar, with a riverfront deck expanded to seat up to 90 guests; Refuge Spa handles treatments and wellness, and the property carries more than 12,000 square feet of total meeting and event space once the former casino's bocce-court restaurant and garden are counted alongside its convention rooms.