Detailed study of economy to be more widely available

Nearly everyone who saw the annual business activity report that Brian Bonnenfant pulled together in recent years thought the report could be a local bestseller.

Bonnenfant, the manager of the geographic information services department at the University of Nevada, Reno, finally gets a chance this year to discover if the fans of his department are right.

The annual survey "2004 Reno-Sparks Business Activity Report" pulls together information on demographics, retail sales, employment, residential construction and traffic.

Then it breaks the data down into 15 subregions of Washoe County.

A sampling of the findings:

* The traffic count on Neil Road west of South Virginia Street more than tripled from 1998 to 2003 rising to 22,700 vehicle a day from 7,150 five years earlier.

* More than 13,400 homes in northeast Sparks have been approved but haven't been built.

* The Sparks region is home to more workers than northwest Reno and the North Valleys combined.

Bonnenfant's department began pulling together the report under contract for local governments, and the handful of business people who saw the finished reports were wowed.

But the two-person geographic information services department has innumerable other responsibilities it's part of the Nevada Small Business Development Center and marketing a book wasn't high on Bonnenfant's to-do list.

On the other hand, revenues from the book priced at $295 could go a long way toward financing the geographic information services department.

It doesn't get any university or taxpayer money and depends entirely on its ability to sell its services.

And Bonnenfant knows he's got something special in the annual study.

"None of it is off-the-shelf," he says."Each piece takes weeks, if not months, to develop.

It's an extreme amount of work."

Mike Reed, dean of UNR's business school, says the study is likely to be especially valuable for entrepreneurs scouting business opportunities.

The Nevada Small Business Development Center provides economic and demographic information to business and government leaders statewide.

(To purchase a copy of the report, contact Bonnenfant at 784.1771 or bonnen@unr.edu.)