Rising land prices send one company packing

While details are scant, rising prices for industrial land in northern Nevada may have sent a major company looking elsewhere to locate new facilities.

The rejection of northern Nevada by the unidentified company appears, however, to have been an isolated incident.

Folks who work closely with companies scouting locations in the region say rising land prices haven't cast a cloud over the land rush of industrial buyers flocking to the area.

Ron Weisinger, executive director of the Carson City-based Northern Nevada Development Authority, says the region lost the interest of a Fortune 500 company that was dismayed at the rising cost of land in northern Nevada.

The company instead decided to look in California.

"They were disappointed because they don't want to be in California," says Weisinger.

The economic development official won't characterize rising prices for industrial land from Fernley to Spanish Springs to Douglas County as a problem.

But Weisinger says pricing will present a challenge, at least until more inventory of industrial land comes onto the market.He says there is stirring among developers looking to create industrial parks both south and east of the primary industrial corridor along U.S.

395.

Prices, others in the business say, are getting a lot of attention, but most buyers aren't resisting.

"There's a lot of pain, a lot of wincing," acknowledges Paul Perkins, senior vice president in the industrial properties group of Colliers International in Reno.

But the wincing, he says, hasn't slowed the rush of industrial companies looking for northern Nevada sites.

And it's a big rush.

Tom Miller of Miller Industrial Properties, a broker in Reno, tells of a property owner who decided to take some industrial land off the market for a few months to reconsider his options.

A potential buyer who had looked at the property refused to believe it was off the market and came back with one bid after another, each a bit higher than the last.

In the end, Miller says, the property sold for 20 percent more than the original listing.

"We can't get enough of it," Miller says of industrial property."People are continuing to move forward." Other landowners say they're getting multiple bids on some land ready for industrial development.

Grant Sims, the economic development manager for Sierra Pacific Power Co., says higher prices on industrial land are common throughout the West, and the Reno area isn't losing market share to lower-priced regions.

"Most of our competitors are experiencing the same thing," Sims says.

Developers of industrial projects and companies looking to build their own facilities often compare northern Nevada to Salt Lake City, Sacramento and the Inland Empire region of Southern California.

Prices will continue to racket up, says Stan Thomas,who oversees industrial sales for Wade Development Co.

"They're creeping up,"Thomas says."But the activity has been extremely strong.

Pricing has not kept us out of the game."