Despite the economic slowdown, it's still
full steam ahead for construction of a ballpark
and ticket sales for Reno's new Triple-A
team and developer Stuart Katzoff has no
plans to curtail or scale back extensive retail
development near the ballpark.
Katzoff, the 35-year-old president of SK
Baseball, says the $50 million Triple-A stadium
is on track for April 21 completion a 10-
month buildout. Steel erection was completed
late last month.
Katzoff says season ticket sales have held
up well,with approximately 2,000 of 3,000
available seats sold. Season ticket packages
range from $576 for right-field reserved to
$1,800 for premium seating behind home
plate, placing per-game prices at $8 to $25.
"We are filling up all of our real high-end
seats and are slowly filling up the rest of the
park,"Katzoff says."It is a tough economy, but
we feel we priced the product right. They are
going fast, and the most desirable seats are
moving quickly."
SK Baseball hired 20 front-office people to
support marketing efforts, ticket sales and
team development. Katzoff expects that number
to grow to 35 to 50 employees once the
Reno Aces take to the field.
"Obviously in this economy we want to be sensible about overstaffing, but we are building
the right organization and the right front
office to execute a first-class
operation, and we will hire as
many people as that takes," he
says.
The team took another step
in recent days with the opening
of a retail kiosk at
Meadowood Mall to sell hats,
shirts and other team apparel
and collectibles.
The downtown development project is
being tackled in three phases.
The first is to get the stadium up and running,
while the second will add 50,000 square
feet of ballpark restaurants, bars and some
retail, as well as a 60,000-square-foot entertainment
venue. Development of the restaurants,
retail and entertainment venue will
begin following the 2009 season.
A third phase calls for aggressive retail
development on company-owned land on the
west side of Evans Avenue, but construction
most likely won't get under way until 2010.
Katzoff hopes that allows enough time for
the retail economy to rebound.
"We have always had a three- to five-year
plan on the retail, with the exception of the
ballpark and Phase II. Hopefully by the time
Phase II is built and active, the world will
have changed and retail will be back in favor."
"We are in the city for 10 or 20 years to
build this stuff," he adds."We plan on redeveloping
downtown Reno and making it a
vibrant, thriving place that people want to
come to. It is not an overnight plan, it is a 10-
to 15-year plan to hold it and have it be successful.
We are not people who sell things, we
like to keep them and own them."
Katzoff says the bulk of financing for the
project, $31 million, came from a rental car
tax enacted by Washoe County, and SK
Baseball footed the rest of the $50 million
price tag.
In the off-season, Katzoff hopes to use the
facility for entertainment events such as concerts
or boxing matches."It would be a shame
not to use this facility as much as we can," he
says.
