Reno Main Post Office
The sole Nevada government post office built in the Art Deco style — designed in 1933 by Nevada’s most prolific institutional architect and praised by the National Register as “an outstanding example of a combined post office and federal office building for a medium-sized city.”
At a glance
At 50 South Virginia Street in downtown Reno, the former Reno Main Post Office was completed in 1933 to a design by Frederic J. DeLongchamps, the dominant figure in Nevada institutional architecture of the early twentieth century. Built by the MacDonald Engineering Company of Chicago at a cost of $363,660, it served as the city’s principal postal facility until 2012, when the building was sold and converted to mixed commercial use. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990, the building is recognized as the only post office constructed by the federal government in Nevada with Art Deco or Moderne styling — making it a singular example of the New Deal era’s approach to civic architecture in the state.
Key facts
- Built: 1933
- Architect: Frederic J. DeLongchamps
- Builder: MacDonald Engineering Co., Chicago
- Construction cost: $363,660
- Style: Art Deco / Starved Classicism
- Address: 50 S. Virginia St., Reno, Washoe County, Nevada
- NRHP designation: February 28, 1990 (ref. 90000135)
- Current use: Mixed commercial (retail, restaurants, offices); underground level “The Basement” since 2015
History
Frederic J. DeLongchamps designed more public buildings in Nevada than any other architect of his era. Born in California in 1882, he established his Reno practice in 1907 and spent the following half-century designing courthouses, schools, hospitals, and civic buildings across a state where the institutional building stock was still being created. The 1933 post office was his synthesis of the Art Deco and Starved Classical idioms then favored by the U.S. government’s Office of the Supervising Architect — a building that reads simultaneously as modern and monumental, forward-looking and authoritative.
The building served as Reno’s main post office for nearly eight decades. In 1986 an energy efficiency renovation lowered the ceiling and improved the lighting. In 2012 the U.S. Postal Service sold the building to a local developer, 50 South Virginia LLC, ending its governmental function. By 2015, the underground level had been renovated and rebranded as “The Basement,” a collection of eateries and retail shops. The current Reno main post office is now located on Vassar Street.
What you see
The NRHP nomination describes the building as “Starved Classical” in overall style — a term that captures the period’s characteristic transformation of classical architecture through the subtraction of ornament and the flattening of surface relief. What remains when the pediments, cornices, and figural sculpture of traditional classicism are pared back to essentials is a building that still reads monumental but trades historical quotation for geometric precision. DeLongchamps walked this line with the control of a practitioner who had designed in every idiom from Beaux-Arts to Mission Revival: the Art Deco/Moderne elements inflect rather than dominate the composition.
The building’s location on South Virginia Street — Reno’s principal commercial artery, running north toward the casinos and south toward the residential neighborhoods — gave it civic visibility appropriate to a federal landmark. Its subsequent conversion to commercial use has changed its character but not its architectural presence: the building continues to anchor the block as it did when postal clerks sorted mail under its coffered ceilings.
Practical information
- Access: Active commercial building; ground-floor retail and restaurant spaces accessible during business hours
- Photography: Exterior photography freely permitted from South Virginia Street
- Best time to visit: Morning or late afternoon for angled light on the facade; “The Basement” eateries operate lunch through evening
Getting there
Located at 50 South Virginia Street in central Reno, within walking distance of the downtown casino corridor. Reno-Tahoe International Airport (RNO) is approximately 4 miles southeast. Interstate 80 and US-395 serve Reno; the building is within walking distance of the Reno Transportation Center (RTC) transit hub.
Nearby
- Nevada Museum of Art — the state’s only accredited art museum, two blocks south
- Wingfield Park — a riverside park and amphitheater on the Truckee River, one block north
- National Automobile Museum — the Harrah Collection, one of the largest car museums in the country, a few blocks east
Sources
- Wikipedia: Reno Main Post Office
- National Register of Historic Places, ref. 90000135, designated February 28, 1990
- NPS NRHP Nomination: H.J. “Jim” Kolva and Steve Franks, February 1989
- Reno Historical Project: Reno Main U.S. Post Office
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