Whitney Peak Hotel

Hotel in Nevada, United States

Whitney Peak Hotel Reno, Tapestry Collection by Hilton (formerly Fitzgeralds Reno, CommRow, Whitney Peak Hotel ) is a hotel and former casino located in Downtown Reno, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Hilton Hotels & Resorts.

Lincoln Fitzgerald, owner of the Nevada Club casino, began construction on a new 16 story, 347 room hotel and casino in 1974. Fitzgeralds Reno opened on May 17, 1976, at a total cost of $16 million. On November 1, 2007, ownership of Fitzgeralds Reno officially transferred to a joint partnership between L3 Development and RAC II LLC, marking the first time in decades that the property was under private ownership.

The frequent nature of rail traffic along the first transcontinental railroad would often make access to the Fitzgeralds from the north inconvenient. As a result, sometime in the 1990s, Fitzgeralds undertook the construction of a footbridge across the tracks to the north, accessible from a structure modeled as a castle tower erected at the southwest corner of Virginia Street and Third Street (directly across the street from the entrance to the Eldorado). Guests would enter the base of the tower, ascend a set of escalators (they only went up; those wishing to exit the property via the bridge would have to wait for an elevator), and upon crossing the bridge, end up in the Lucky Forest. Due to the construction of the ReTRAC train trench, the bridge was determined to be in conflict with necessary structural elements of both the trench itself, as well as the resulting Virginia Street overpass. This, along with the trench rendering the bridge both redundant and unnecessary, ultimately led to its demolition in 2007.

On October 1, 2008, Fitzgeralds Reno announced its imminent closure in November 2008. 470 employees were laid off and the new ownership evaluated options for the property. The lower floors re opened as CommRow on October 1, 2011 with the world's tallest climbing wall constructed on the exterior, CommRow was designated to have a hotel component but this never materialized and the business model as a whole, struggled and closed down on January 1, 2013.

Whitney Peak Hotel was announced as CommRow's replacement and the Chicago based ownership decided it was going to gut the aging structure and rebuild from scratch, and the new property opened on Memorial Day weekend 2014. The completely renovated property shows no trace of the prior CommRow or Fitzgeralds Reno. The 164' exterior climbing wall, indoor climbing boulders, and the Blarney Stone monument are the only remnants from the past business model.

Whitney Peak Hotel in downtown Reno will be rebranded as a Hilton hotel later this year, according to a spokesperson.