Drive the intersection of Damonte Ranch Parkway and Steamboat Parkway enough times and you start to tune out the "Downtown Damonte" signage. It has been up for years, promising a walkable new core for south Reno, and for years the land behind it has looked mostly the same: graded dirt, a chain-link perimeter, the occasional piece of heavy equipment parked and idle. Most residents have folded the whole thing into one mental file labeled "still not happening."
That file is wrong, or at least half wrong. Two separate projects share that footprint, they started on completely different clocks, and one of them is reaching its most important milestone in years this exact month. The other is still waiting on a federal floodplain map.
The Half Still Waiting on Paperwork
Downtown Damonte was first announced in 2022 as a 73-acre mixed-use district, with an original target of opening in late 2024 or early 2025. That date slipped past years ago. Environmental review held the project for more than two years before developer Perry Di Loreto announced in November 2025 that the issues had finally been resolved, the plan had been tightened to roughly 30 acres of offices, restaurants, retail and townhomes built out in three phases, and infrastructure work was underway with a goal of visible vertical construction by the summer of 2026.
Summer arrived, and the goal didn't hold. As of July 2026, a final floodplain mapping review is keeping major construction from moving forward. FEMA has been reviewing updated engineering data that the city of Reno submitted after preliminary flood maps were released for the area, and until that review closes, the developer's own timeline is on hold again. It's a bureaucratic hurdle rather than a financial one, but the practical effect for anyone watching the site is the same: don't expect the skyline at that corner to change meaningfully before the paperwork does.
The Half That Isn't Waiting on Anyone
Here's what most residents miss. Liberty Dogs, a 27-acre veteran service dog training and placement campus, sits on a separate parcel within that same Downtown Damonte footprint, and it has been building on its own schedule the entire time. By November 2024, the nine-building campus, which includes training space, kennels, a veterinary clinic and onsite housing for visiting veterans, was already under construction on Damonte Ranch Parkway, with its first four puppies already assigned to volunteer raisers. It's a closed construction site, but not a hidden one. Residents driving that stretch of Damonte Ranch Parkway have been able to watch it rise for close to two years now.
The campus is fully funded through the Dave and Cheryl Duffield Foundation and is designed to train roughly 200 dogs a year, pairing each one with a veteran through a two week residential stay at no cost to participants. As of May 2026, Liberty Dogs had ten dogs in advanced training. The organization expects its first veteran-dog placements this August, with a full campus opening set for September. That means the vague "summer 2026" date everyone has been half-tracking is now a specific month, and it's this one.
One of the puppy raisers behind that milestone is a retired Marine who served nearly 25 years before moving to Reno to be near family. She spent about 18 months raising a dog named Annie while managing PTSD and chronic pain, and Annie is scheduled to be turned in for advanced placement training on August 15. Retired Major General Ondra Berry, who now serves as Liberty Dogs' CEO, has described the ambition behind the build as unlike anything currently available in veteran services, closer to a resort than a typical training facility.
Put those two timelines side by side and the picture sharpens:
| Downtown Damonte | Liberty Dogs | |
|---|---|---|
| Construction status | Infrastructure work resumed late 2025 | Under construction since at least November 2024 |
| Status as of mid-2026 | Held by FEMA floodplain review | Ten dogs in advanced training as of May 2026 |
| Next milestone | Vertical construction, no confirmed date | First veteran placements this August, campus opens September |
The neighborhood's most visible near-term change at that corner in 2026 isn't retail signage or office construction. It's a veteran walking a trained service dog off that campus for the first time.
What Twenty Years Built Around the Same Corner
While the bigger district waits, the shopping center that already exists at that intersection keeps turning over in smaller, steadier ways. Damonte Ranch Town Center now runs 485,400 square feet, anchored by Safeway and Home Depot, serving a trade area of roughly 6,000 single-family homes and 1,200 apartments.
Lamppost Pizza had operated at the center for 20 years before closing in early 2026, and the same ownership reopened the space in June as Amici Pizzeria & Bar, with a grand opening on June 11. It's a wider Italian-American concept built around pastas and appetizers, run by the same operators in the same corner unit, which says something about how much the surrounding household count has grown since Lamppost first opened.
The rest of the center's current lineup includes:
- Starbucks
- Slim Chickens
- The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill
- Texas Roadhouse
- Chop Stop
- CVS
- US Bank
The Great Greek's owners have pointed to the long-running presence of Lamppost Pizza as one reason they chose this location for their first Reno franchise. That's the pattern worth watching over the next year or two. Retail turnover at a mature center like this one isn't usually a warning sign. It's often the clearest evidence that a trade area still has room to support a bigger concept.
The Loop Residents Actually Use
None of this is the reason most people in Damonte Ranch leave the house on a Saturday morning. That's the Wetlands Loop, a paved trail that circles the wetlands north of the residential blocks and connects into Damonte Ranch Park, which has a playground, a basketball court and a covered barbecue area. It's flat, mostly shaded only near the park itself, and open to leashed dogs year round. Park hours run 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. from April through September and 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. the rest of the year.
Ask how long the loop actually is and you'll get different answers depending on the source. Several trail sites put the main loop at 3.1 miles. Damonte Ranch's own site rounds it up closer to five, which likely accounts for the connector spurs that run out to Twin Peaks and the neighborhood entrances feeding into the loop from different directions. Either way, it's one of the more reliable places in south Reno to spot hawks and migratory birds, and on a quieter morning, the wild mustangs that occasionally wander through the open ground near the wetlands.
The Corner That's Still Just a Rumor
One more piece worth knowing before it shows up as a headline. A pre-application has been filed for a roughly 161,500 square foot warehouse, plus a gas station and car wash, at the northeast corner of South Virginia Street and Veterans Parkway, near the Summit mall and the Damonte Ranch area. The proposal is tied to a larger plan that would extend Damonte Ranch Parkway to connect Veterans Parkway and Old Virginia Road. A traffic study has been approved, but there's no official application yet, no review from the relevant design committee, and no timeline for construction. If it moves forward, it would be Reno's second Costco after the Plumb Lane location. For now it's a filing, not a plan you should count on for next year.
The honest version of this corner in August 2026 looks like this. The big, branded district everyone has been waiting on is stuck behind a federal map review with no new date attached. The mission-driven campus most people lump in with it has been quietly building for close to two years and is about to graduate its first veteran and service dog team this month. The shopping center everyone already uses keeps swapping tenants in ways that track real household growth rather than press releases. And the warehouse retailer half the neighborhood wants is still just a filing on a city desk.
That's a more useful picture than "still delayed," and it's the kind of detail that only shows up if you're actually tracking the corner rather than the headline about it.
Soni Jackson lives and works this stretch of south Reno, not just the listings on it. If you want the version of Damonte Ranch's story that goes beyond what the signage says, reach out to Soni Jackson anytime.
