Coyote TV - High Desert Advocate

           Hope for a late November opening for the Rusty Palms appear to be diminishing as permit for its access road languishes in the Nevada Department of Transportation’s Carson City office.
    “We just have to wait for the permit,” said developer Steve Weinstein this week. “It’s been about a month since we got the okay from them and I was told that the permit would be on its way. You need patience when working with bureaucracy.”
    This is not the first time time Rusty Palms had had to wait for the NDOT.
    This August the West Wendover City Council approved a deal with the Nevada Department of Transportation that eliminates an unexpected half a million dollar right of access charge.
    However it was only in late October that the department sent out its notice of approval to the verbal agreement.
    That first delay did not however slow down work on the project. Now however with construction all but completed and the only major part left is the parking lot getting that permit is vital.
    “We need to build the access road at the same time we build the parking lot,” the contractor explained. “One is part of the other.”
    According to Weinstein  he was only informed through the city this April that he was going to be charged a half a million dollars by the NDOT for a right of access, essentially permission to for the road leading to the Rusty Palms cross an imaginary line.
    “It was certainly a surprise to me and frankly I was completely unaware that I was liable for that charge.” Weinstein explained.
    The fact that the developer only learned of the charge after construction on the project began meant that the hefty surcharge was not taken into account in Rusty Palms financing.
    Finding half a million in good times is not the easiest task, finding it during a national recession of unprecedented proportions would have been even more difficult.
    Weinstein first appealed to the NDOT and then to the Governor Jim Gibbons. City Manager Chris Melville also met with NDOT officials and in May, Assemblyman Carpenter got involved along with state Senator Dean Rhodes.
    Two more months of phone calls and negotiations passed and finally the city, the NDOT reached an agreement that in essence gave the right of access to the city and thus eliminate the half a million dollar charge.
    Rusty Palms the first new commercial development in West Wendover in almost a decade won final approval from the city council last September and construction on it began in early 2009.
    The project will also be the first development of any kind north of Interstate 80.
    Weinstein has owned the property since 1998 is a major builder in Utah.
    The business complex could be open for lease by the end of September and could house retail stores, restaurants as well as several gaming machines.