Looking for industrial land? Forget about searching close to town

Oh give me land lots of land under starry skies above ...

You can sing all you want. The cows may come strolling home eventually, but if you are looking for industrial-zoned land, you might have to look outside Reno and Sparks and you should start looking soon. While only a few short years ago, there was a significant supply of industrial in-fill opportunities in Reno and Sparks, today those opportunities are disappearing quickly.

There are a total of 26 industrial acres currently for sale in the north Reno, south Reno, and Reno airport submarkets. Of this small group, the largest parcel is eight acres, followed by a four-acre parcel, then followed by a handful of one- to two-acre parcels. Sparks' availability isn't much better with a total of 28 acres available for sale, all located in the Spanish Springs Business Center. Of the 411-acre park, 49 acres were just sold to Tarragon, and 115 acres are currently in escrow to one suitor.

While the large acreage in escrow is still available to the public until the end of their due diligence period, this leaves only 28 acres with the largest individual parcel being 10 acres. The Stead submarket is slightly better, with 84 total acres currently for sale, with four parcels being 10 acres or greater, and the largest parcel being nearly 23 acres.

In order to find a true abundance of industrial land today, head east my friend.

Four miles outside of town, in Mustang, you will find one 1.5-acre parcel available, but travel 4 miles farther to the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) and you'll hit pay dirt. Eight miles east of Sparks, TRIC is offering 3,200 cut-to-suit acres in their existing phase of developed land sales. Land in TRIC is selling quickly, due to the abundance of available land, park infrastructure, location, and business friendly development environment.

Approximately 20 miles east of TRIC, you will again find a significant amount of available industrial land in the Crossroads Commerce Center (CCC) offered by Wade Development. CCC has 2,700 industrial acres available, also in a cut-to-suit manner. CCC has been attractive to various large park tenants, primarily manufacturers, given the availability of land, surrounding workforce, and existing support services.

I would be remiss in not also mentioning our sister city, Carson City, which also offers a significant inventory of industrial land. We expect this region to become more of an extension of our market with the completion of the USA Parkway.

Now let's get back to singing. Oh give me land, lots of land...

Aaron Somer is an industrial broker with Colliers International. Contact him at 775-823-4665 or asomer@colliersreno.com.