Aging Grand Avenue structure demolished for new development

LARAMIE — The recently razed Circle S Motel, a longtime fixture on Laramie’s east end, is now nothing more than a vacant lot, but it’s soon to be (fill in the blank).

Rumors abound for the next use for the old Circle S site on East Grand Avenue, but for now the answer is nothing, according to V. Frank Mendicino Sr., co-owner of the property.

“Nothing is firm yet, and we don’t have anything specific in mind at this point,” Mendicino told The Northern Colorado Business Report from his office in California. “I know there are all sorts of rumors, some of the craziest of rumors. That’s one of the great things about a small community.”

Whatever goes there, Mendicino said he and his partner, Kent Boswell, want it to be good for the community.

“We’re going to do something that is really worthwhile,” he said. “We think it’s the best piece of commercial property in Laramie right now, so we really want to do something that will be very positive for the community. We’re really going to be pretty selective in terms of the kind of project that goes on that site.”

Mendicino, son of a longtime Laramie shoe dealer, served as Wyoming’s attorney general under the late Gov. Ed Herschler in the 1970s. He currently is a general partner in the Woodside Fund, a California venture-capital firm headquartered in Woodside in the Bay Area. He works in the East Bay community of Pleasanton but still maintains an apartment in Laramie and returns frequently.

Mendicino has co-owned the Circle S for a number of years with Boswell, a former Laramie Realtor who now lives in Nevada.

The Circle S was leased to Wyoming Technical Institute in Laramie for the past five years as dorm space, but when the lease expired, Mendicino and Boswell decided to tear down the aging brick structure.

“We had it carefully evaluated by engineers and architects, and we concluded that to retrofit the property would be more expensive than tearing it down and preparing the land for development,” he said.

With both partners not in Laramie on a full-time basis, it would be harder to develop a project themselves, but that remains an option “if the right thing doesn’t come along.” Other options include a joint-venture, building to suit, a land lease or sale of the property, he said.

“We’ve owned the property for a long time, we don’t owe anything on it, so we’re in a position to sit and wait and see if somebody comes along with a proposal that makes some sense,” he said. “We’re very flexible. I guess our feeling now is we’ll sit back and see what happens over the next six months or a year, and if nothing has happened by next winter, we may put our heads into doing a project ourselves.”