Rumors fly on progress of 'the road"

Microsoft is buying up land,Wal-Mart is buying, Starbucks is buying, Safeway is buying, everybody is buying land in Stagecoach if you listen to the rumors, says Mac Calico, laughing.He sells residential lots in Stagecoach as a broker with Mac V.

Calico Real Estate.

The rumors none of them substantiated in fact are flying far ahead of progress on the USA Parkway, an 18-mile road expected to connect the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center on Interstate 80 with Silver Springs on Highway 50.

The road will be paved in 2007, say people around Silver Springs.

People say the Reno- Tahoe International Airport will kick out all freight airlines at the end of this year, so Fed Ex and UPS will open air-freight operations at the Silver Springs airport to serve the big industrial park to the north.

Rumors grow in the telling.

The truth? No one knows when the road will be finished.

And a Reno-Tahoe International Airport spokesman can only laugh when he hears the rumor about the freight carriers.

The Nevada Department of Transportation did preliminary surveys to determine the best route through the rocky terrain.However, the agency has no plans to actually build the road, which is on private land, says Susan Martinovich, deputy director.

Instead,much of it will be built by the developer of the giant Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.

Miles Ottenheimer, spokesman for the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, provides the facts about the USA Parkway:

* The first half of the 18-mile road will be four-lane, and the second half two-lane.

* The first six miles will be completed in about three months.

* The first four miles will provide access to the Wal-Mart Distribution Center site.

* From there, the road will be built, as needed, to provide access to companies as they move into the center.

* Work is slated to start in early fall on an interchange at I-80, which may be finished in early 2006.

Construction bids will be taken in September.

* A bridge to cross the railroad tracks cost $2.1 million.

* Another bridge will be needed to span the Truckee River.

* The finished road is expected to cost between $20 million and $40 million.

* When the entire road is completed, John Roger Norman, owner of the nearly 104,000- acre parcel, plans to donate the road right-ofway, measuring 120 feet wide, to the state.

The last two miles of the 18-mile road are the sticky part.

It crosses a 12,000-acre parcel of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Norman wants to buy the land.

Storey County wants the BLM to sell it to him.

The BLM has been sitting on the request since 1999.

BLM policy is to sell off lands in a public bidding process, but backers of Norman's proposal say a public auction would draw speculators and drive up the price.