Volleyball Festival in market for large warehouse spaces

In a market where available industrial space is melting away like the Sierra snow in July, Scott Elander faces an unenviable task: Finding at least 175,000 square feet of warehouse space for a volleyball tournament.

The Volleyball Festival returns to Reno for its second year in late June and early July, and Elander needs to make sure he has enough space for the 9,500 athletes to play more than 7,000 volleyball games.

Venues such as the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, City Center Pavilion, Reno Event Center and Reno Hilton provide much of the space, but the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority needs to find even more.

Elander, operations manager of Festival Sports Inc., the producer of Volleyball Festival, says the task is proving to be more of a challenge this year than last.

For the 2004 event, organizers leased about 75,000 square feet in South Meadows and another 130,000 square feet on Coney Island Drive in Sparks.

Assuming that Elander can find space which is challenging as the vacancy rate in industrial properties dropped sharply this year RSCVA can't offer great terms.

"The companies that lease warehouses are looking for long-term contracts," he said last week."We can't offer that."

But he said a landlord facing the likelihood that a building might stand vacant may be willing to take a one-month lease from RSCVA to keep some cash flowing.

The properties he seeks have ceilings at least 25 feet high, climate control and open spaces of at least 50 feet on a side that can be configured into volleyball courts.

And space in the market is tight.

"It's something we're concerned about, but it's not a problem we can't overcome," Elander said.

If industrial space isn't available, organizers will look to the University of Nevada, Reno, or Washoe County schools for space.

But they'd prefer to use a big industrial venue where a lot of games can be played at one time.

"It adds to the excitement of the event, having large venues and massive amounts of people," Elander said.

The Volleyball Festival, which bills itself as the largest annual sporting event in the world for women, moved to Reno last year after two decades in Sacramento.

In the California city, participants often drove 30 minutes from one venue to another as they played a schedule of games over six days.

They liked the opportunity to stay off the roads when the festival came to Reno in 2004.

Along with the 9,500 participants aged 12- 18,Volleyball Festival draws about 10,000 parents and spectators,more than 1,200 coaches, about 200 college recruiters and a paid staff of more than 350.

With an economic impact of more than $28 million,Volleyball Festival is one of the biggest events in the history of the RSCVA, said Erin Wallace, a spokeswoman for the authority.

The Volleyball Festival is only a bit smaller than the summer Olympics in the number of participants, and it's the world's largest amateur

sporting event for women.