Carson Nugget owner buys another downtown building for $1.2 million

The former Stewart Title building in downtown Carson City has been bought for $1.2 million by a company managed by Alan Adams, the owner of the Carson Nugget.

Adams said he doesn't have "the foggiest idea" what he's going to do with the building at the corner of Carson and West Proctor streets, but said he will know soon.

The building, 111 W. Proctor St., is just south of Doppelgangers, a bar and grill that opened this month and is operated by another company Adams runs.

After being there since 1986, Stewart Title moved out of the building in March to a new location on College Parkway. The move was a business decision, said Noga Pierrott, director of human recourses for the company.

Gary Sheerin, who owned the building and had a law office in another part of it, said the sale was a fair deal for both sides.

"(It is located) next to the City Hall, next to the state Capitol and the legislature - it was a great location. Next to a lot of restaurants in the area."

Sheerin said he doesn't know what Adams is going to do with the building, but said he heard he might shut down the stretch of West Proctor Street that runs between it and Doppelgangers.

"The two buildings will then become adjacent, so to speak, the property will become adjacent rather than split," he said. "How that fits into their whole plans, I don't know."

Ronni Hannaman, director of the Carson City Chamber of Commerce, said she isn't sure what Adams will do with the building either, but said what he does will be good for downtown.

"When I heard the news, I said, 'Yippee!'" she said.

Though the building isn't as old as the 19th-century structure Doppelgangers is in, the Nevada State Journal, a former newspaper, had an article that praised the building when it opened in 1962 as Security National Bank.

The inside of the building - including the large lobby, bookkeeping department, six tellers' windows and other features - is "modern in every respect," it said.

Before the bank built on the corner, there was a market and a liquor store there, said Ed Blanchard, a former assistant manager at the bank. The business operated from a trailer beside the construction site for awhile until the building went up.

When it was done, the style of the building with its glass-paneled front was unique in the city.

"It was really a spectacle," he said.

• Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.