Pre-certification process speeds development

The Nevada Certified Sites program expedites the acquisition and development process for property buyers and sellers.

“We have to start building new commercial space,” said Aaron West, chief executive officer for the Nevada Builders Alliance.

“One of our biggest roadblocks to economic development is the lack of building space,” said Andrew Haskin, director of business development for Northern Nevada Development Authority. “We’ve seen businesses head north to the Tahoe Regional Industrial Center because they can’t find what they are looking for to fit their needs here.”

Haskin said NNDA’s construction and design committee, including West, who was instrumental in developing Nevada Certified Sites, studied programs in 38 different states to gather best practices to make the Nevada model.

Site certification entails documenting all available information about a property including zoning, acreage, preliminary title search, special assessments, general improvements, phase one environmental and flood zone assessments, transportation, accessibility of utilities, geotechnical summaries, photos and maps.

Haskin said the new process requires the property owner to process the application, where typically buyers perform the due diligence.

“Having the site pre-certified helps buyers sell more quickly by making the property more attractive to buyers,” he said. “Site certification shaves months off the purchase-to-construction period and saves money in production downtime for the buyer, and oftentimes the seller can recover the cost of certification.”

A 46-acre parcel near the Carson City airport is the first area property to be certified. A second property is going through the process.

Brad Bonkowski, CCIM, broker of record and owner of NAI Alliance Carson City, said even though the property owner essentially has to have all the due diligence done in advance for a buyer, the payoff can be huge. “Certified sites give us a leg up on the competition,” he said.

“It takes a very unique property owner, like the ownership group that owns Carson City’s certified site, a group of developers, builders, real estate people, to have that foresight and make that kind of commitment. They understand obstacles and how to solve problems.”

Property owners can go to www.nevadacertifiedsites.com to download program guidelines, application and checklist. Applications are submitted to NNDA and reviewed by the construction and design committee. Applications found to be complete and error free are certified by the construction and design committee, led by Greg Dye of Briggs Electric, and NNDA.