Sparks facility to provide 50 musician rehearsal rooms

Bill Woody, a musician before got into the kitchen-and-bath remodeling business two decades ago, knows two things about musicians:

They don't want to be bothered while they're rehearsing, and they don't want to bother anyone else, either.

That knowledge creates an opportunity for Woody, who's developing the 18,000-square-foot Musicians Rehearsal Center in a Sparks industrial park.

When it's completed within the next few weeks, Musicians Rehearsal Center will include 50 rehearsal rooms in a highly secure environment.

The musicians who pay $275 to $550 a month to rent a room will have 24-hour, seven-day access to the building.

Most of the rooms are sized to allow four or five musicians to work together comfortably, although a handful of the rooms are smaller. A stage-sized room, to be leased by the hour, will allow performing groups to fine-tune their acts or allow teachers to host groups for clinics.

Woody says the primary market for Musicians Rehearsal Center isn't working professional musicians, who typically are playing so often that they seldom practice.

Instead, he expects to rent rooms to younger musicians those in their 20s and 30s who are practicing hard in hopes of developing a music career.

A second market, he says, will be serious amateur musicians who want a place to practice and play with like-minded friends.

Because musicians will be storing thousands of dollars of instruments and gear at the center, security will be tight at individual rehearsal rooms as well as entry doors.

In fact, Woody isn't making the address of the facility widely known except to musicians who rent space. It's in a second-generation industrial building owned by Sentinel Real Estate Fund.

Similar facilities across the country are full, and some have a waiting list. Along with the space for rehearsal, the centers often create a sense of community among musicians, Woody says. Musicians Rehearsal Center is the first of its type in Nevada.

Gary Baker of Coldwell Banker Commercial Clay & Associates in Reno helped Woody find the space, and Woody credits Baker's understanding of the concept as critical to bringing it to reality.

Kulau Construction of Reno is the general contractor on the extensive improvements inside the building, and the work involves more than traditional stud-and-drywall construction.

Double walls between rehearsal rooms provide sound insulation, and steel plates inside walls next to doors provide increased security.

Woody, who worked as remodeling contractor in Vancouver, Wash., before coming to Reno, is financing the project himself.

"I'm putting everything I have into this," he says.