This is an abbreviated article from http://www.rgj.com/story/money/business/2014/09/07/tesla-envisioning-impacts-life-nevada/15233391/
Read this abbreviated article and then tell me investing in raw land in Northern Nevada isn’t going to be a great long term investment…
It will be a few years before Tesla Motors’ massive – as in five million square feet – battery gigafactory is visible in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center 17 miles east of Sparks.
But the coming changes to the landscape of daily life in greater Reno-Sparks are already taking shape in the minds of those awaiting what TRIC partner Lance Gilman says will be a “new Comstock Lode” for the region.
Many details are yet to come. But from roads to planes, housing, shopping and schools, the footprint from the tens of thousands of employees at the gigafactory and the ancillary businesses it will spawn will surely be huge.
The site
The factory itself will easily be the biggest building in the 106,000-acre Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center when it’s done and operating, as planned, in 2017. A dirt pad is already in place.
Expect as many as 4,000 workers – ideally locals – in on the construction, said TRIC developer Roger Norman. That will mean lots of trucks moving steel and other materials that will arrive either from the nearby Union Pacific Railroad mainline or on surface roads via Interstate 80.
To that end, getting into and out of the site is, at present, a one-way proposition – from the north via USA Parkway.
But that will change – and fast, TRIC officials say.
South from the gigafactory site, USA Parkway’s still-unbuilt 16 miles to U.S. Highway 50 in Silver Springs will be “fast-tracked” to completion in as soon as two years, they said, opening up access to Lyon County and the Dayton Valley and to Carson City beyond.
“Instead of an hour-plus trip getting employees to their jobs, it suddenly becomes as little as 12, 13 minutes,” Norman said.
Housing / Land boom ahead?
Well before Thursday’s confirmation of the gigafactory after months of rumors and speculation, builders were knocking on the opportunity door, officials say.
“I’ve had builders at the table for three weeks. They’re looking at lots in Fernley and buying property in Silver Springs,” said Gilman.
Norman said the gigafactory’s influence on housing could reach into downtown Reno, where condominium high-rises have become more popular with the area’s post-recession housing recovery.
Others agreed.
“The big picture is great for Reno and Northern Nevada. It will absolutely stimulate growth,” said AndrooAllen, interim executive director of the Builders Association of Northern Nevada, citing the North Valleys and areas of Sparks for in-demand low- to mid-level new homes.
“There are several builders looking at parcels now,” Allen said on Friday, a day after the Tesla announcement. “There’s a lot more momentum today than there was yesterday. I’ve had three conversations just today with builders. The trickle-down has already started.”
Brian Bonnenfant, project manager at the Center for Regional Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, said he doesn’t see a housing shortage ahead.
“We still have over 20,000 approved and unbuilt single-family units on the book,” he said of new homes left unbuilt because of the recession. “Those builders are ready to jump. Finished lots are waiting to go. This (Tesla) will definitely excite builders.”
The Reno-Sparks area’s existing-home market has rebounded from a recession-low median sales price of $135,000 in January 2012 to the $250,000 range in July, according to the Reno/Sparks Association of Realtors.
More recently, rising inventories have helped slow the median price increase, RSAR President Mark Ashworth said, helping temper the market and keep prices affordable for first-time home buyers.
“Before Tesla, we were looking to return to a more historical slowdown,” he said. “Now with Tesla, that could change. But it’s too soon to make any projections. Long term, we anticipate an increase in prices with demand.”
But he added, “From the 30,000-foot level, it’s hard to see anything negative with (the gigafactory’s impact) except for price rises.”
The bottom line, says UNR economist Mark Pingle, is the demands of the thousands of gigafactory and other new employees will help bolster the overall economy.
“What is great about a new large business like Tesla locating to our area is that most of the new employment will produce products (batteries) that will be exported,” Pingle said in an email to the Reno Gazette-Journal.
“Such a new business has a greater multiplier effect than something like a new restaurant which serves the local area,” he said. “The revenue received by a new restaurant is (taking) revenue away from existing restaurants in the area, while the revenue received by an exporting business is not competing with local companies (but rather is competing with companies outside the area).”
“This,” he said of Tesla, “is a fine feather in our cap.”
