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Downtown Reno

The centre. Everything else here is described relative to it.

The casino core, the Arch, the Truckee riverwalk and the ballpark — compact, walkable, and open at every hour.

Downtown is the part of Reno that looks like the postcard: the Arch over Virginia Street, the big casino properties stacked along it, and the Truckee running east–west through the middle of it. It is genuinely compact — you can walk the whole core in about twenty minutes — and it is the only part of the city where not having a car is comfortable.

It is also the part that has changed most. Reno lost its casino monopoly to California's tribal gaming two decades ago, and downtown spent the years since with a lot of empty square footage. Harrah's, the property that effectively invented the modern Reno casino, closed in 2020 and is being redeveloped as Reno City Center. The blocks north of the river are visibly a work in progress, and some of them are rough at night.

What has genuinely improved is the river. The Truckee riverwalk, Wingfield Park and the whitewater park are the best free thing downtown, and on a hot afternoon they are where the city actually is.

West of the casino core is the Neon Line District, a long-running redevelopment of the blocks toward the university. J Resort anchors it and its outdoor venue, Glow Plaza, runs live music through the warmer months. It is worth knowing that this is a district in progress rather than a finished one — several of the surrounding blocks are still construction or vacant lots, and how much of it is built when you arrive depends on when you arrive.

Good for

  • Staying without a car
  • Casino floors and showrooms
  • The river, the whitewater park and the ballpark
  • Being able to walk home at 2am

Getting around

Genuinely walkable end to end, roughly twenty minutes north to south. Note that minors cannot cross a casino gaming floor in Nevada, which occasionally makes two adjacent buildings a longer walk than the map suggests.

Should you stay here?

The default answer, and the right one for a first visit. It is the only part of Reno where you can leave the car for the whole trip: three connected casinos, the river, the ballpark and a dozen bars are inside a twenty-minute walk, and the airport is eleven minutes away. You trade room quality for that — the best rooms in the city are ten minutes south — but nowhere else lets you walk home at 2am.

What it costs you

  • The rooms are mid-range. The Row's three properties are solid and dated; the genuinely nice hotels are in South Reno.
  • It is uneven block to block. The stretch north of the river and west toward the Neon Line is visibly still being rebuilt, and parts of it are bleak after dark.
  • Casino floors are 21+ and minors may not linger on one, which occasionally makes two adjacent buildings a longer walk than the map suggests.
  • Weekend crawl nights — mid-October and mid-December — make downtown loud, expensive and very busy.

Do you need a car?

Not needed, and mildly inconvenient — most properties charge for parking. Stay here without one if you are not leaving town. Rent for the day you go to Tahoe or Virginia City rather than for the whole trip.

When it is at its best

The only genuinely 24-hour part of the city. The casino floors never close, the riverwalk is best on a hot afternoon, and Virginia Street is at its most photogenic at dusk when the Arch reads against a lit sky rather than a black one.

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Venues here

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