Hawco land donations help build community

This week's announcement that Hawco Properties will give four acres for a community college campus at Spanish Springs marks the company's second major land donation in less than a month.

Hawco President Jesse Haw says the company is driven by charitable impulses it believes strongly in the value of education as well as the opportunity to build the value of its land holdings.

At a press conference this week, Hawco will announce that it's donating land to Truckee Meadows Community College for classroom space.

TMCC plans to build a 60,000- square-foot, three-story classroom building on the property near the new middle school that will open this year at 600 Eagle Canyon Drive in Spanish Springs.

Last month, Hawco gave the YMCA of the Sierra 10 acres valued at $2.6 million to build a new branch of the YMCA.

That land, too, is near the new middle school.

Haw said the timing of the donations is coincidental as his company had been working with the YMCA of the Sierra since 1996 on a site.

Both donations to TMCC and the YMCA mark the company's strong interest in education, he said.

At the same time, Haw said the company recognizes that the development of a YMCA branch and community college classrooms help build the strength of the Spanish Springs community.

"It's another piece of the puzzle in what a community means," he said.

Hawco developed several thousand homes in the Spanish Springs area and now is selling land in the area to other homebuilders.

The company's biggest interest in the area now is the Spanish Springs Business Center, an industrial property along Pyramid Lake Highway.