Million-dollar desert moat protects Stead warehouse

It may strike some people as odd that a major construction company would be shelling out $1.2 million dollars in offsite improvement costs that would include, among other things, a nearly one-mile drainage channel in the high desert just north of the Reno- Stead airport.

But that is precisely what Panattoni Construction Company is doing in order to build a 405,000-square-foot speculative distribution/ warehouse structure immediately north of the General Motors regional parts distribution center on Echo Avenue.

The reason is storm runoff that flows naturally at this 5,100-foot elevation site toward the Silver Lake playa which, in most years, is nothing more than a dry lake.

By definition, a playa is a shallow, short-lived lake that forms where water drains into a basin that has no defined outlet, either sea, lake or stream.

But the Stead-Lemmon Valley area is known for the sometimes-marshy land that surrounds the community just east of Highway 395 at the north edge of Reno.

The nearby Swan Lake Native Study Area a marshy area situated between Lemon Valley Road and Military Road is a vivid example of what high desert storm runoff can create.

"We knew when we purchased the property some two years ago that dealing with storm runoff would become a necessity," says Matt Clafton, Panattoni's vice president and general manager of the company's Reno office.

Panattoni has projects in some 85 cities throughout the country and expects to do between $400 million and $500 million in revenues this year.

But building what some call a "moat" in the desert is admittedly something out of the ordinary.

"This spec building will be built on a small portion of a 100-acre site we own," says Clafton."It will call for an extension of Echo Avenue and, depending upon a client's needs, can also be served by rail which already goes to the General Motors distribution center."

Panattoni has contracted with Stantec, an engineering design firm with expertise in dealing with environmental issues.

The Reno office of Stantec recently contracted with El Dorado County in California to provide services for storm water runoff and air quality improvement in the Lake Tahoe drainage basin.

Trina McGoon, a professional engineer for Stantec, is manager for the drainage channel project.

She says there is roughly a 100-squaremile area north and east of Stead that makes up the watershed that ranges from Red Rock to Hungry Valley.

Storm runoff may flow into either the Lemmon Lake playa or the Silver Lake playa.

"There are a lot of people who look at this arid locale and wonder why anyone would need a storm runoff drainage system, but the fact is that during heavy downpours especially in summer months the water flow can be very damaging,"McGoon says.

A case in point, she notes, is the flash flood that occurred two years ago on the hilltop between Hungry Valley and Spanish Springs.

"That was a 200-year event," she says.

McGoon says the diversion channel will likely be developed in phases as construction on the Panattoni site progresses.

The channel will pull in surface water from a 45-square-mile area and have the ability to handle flows of up to 2,350 cubic feet per second.

The channel itself will be 110 feet wide and sloped.

It will range in depth from six to seven feet and will run a total of 4,966 feet just short of one mile past the east side and around the north side of Panattoni's 100-acre parcel.

Both sides of the diversion channel will be covered with grouted rock riprap.

The channel will meet all the standards necessary to deal with a 100-year event.

Both Clafton and McGoon agree that had the huge snowfall received earlier this year been in the form of rain, the 100-year standard could have been tested.

While Panattoni has made a name for itself constructing build-to-suit big box warehouses and distribution centers, the market today calls for smaller, more flexible office/warehouse structures.

"The building will be a concrete tilt-up and the plan right now calls for the components inside to be geared for eight enclosures of 50,000 square feet each," says Clafton.

"There will be 4,000 amps of power available, but this could be expanded to 6,000 amps should a client have such needs.

The height inside will be 30 feet and we will have the latest in ESFR (early suppression, fast response) sprinkling systems."

Earth taken from digging the new storm runoff channel will be used on the site where the new building will be built.

Clafton expects construction to begin shortly with completion scheduled for late August or early September.