Flag Store sets expansion

The new owners’ plans to spruce up an aging commercial property along Glendale Avenue convinced a landmark tenant to stay put.

And now the founder of The Flag Store Sign and Banner has leased an additional 1,200 square feet in the complex at 155 Glendale Ave., space that will allow the company to undertake a significant new business line.

Marty Smith, who’s operated The Flag Store at the Glendale location for 27 years, said the company is adding equipment to digitally print on fabric — a fast-growing segment of the flag and banner business.

With the new equipment, only the third installation of its type in the West, Smith said the company expects to add at least three workers in coming months.

“We’ll be manufacturing and sewing flags right here,” said Smith, who said he’ll be bringing the work back to Sparks from an out-of-state supplier that currently handles the work.

With the new operation, The Flag Store will have the capability to produce flags as large as 10 feet by 6 feet and banners as large as 6 feet by 50 feet, Smith said.

Among the new operation’s first projects: Production of the flag that will commemorate the 150th anniversary of Nevada’s statehood.

Smith said last week that he’d planned to move the store, but was convinced to stay after seeing the plans from Schnabel Ventures and Blackfire Real Estate Ventures, which purchased the property in March.

The two companies have painted the 56,1880-square-foot building, repaved and repaired its parking lot and installed new landscaping, said Tilio Lagatta, Blackfire’s managing partner.

Occupancy has crept up to about 55 percent Lagatta said. The building was 50 percent full when it was sold.

New tenants are expected to be a mix of retailers, office users and small companies that are looking for inexpensive industrial flex space, Lagatta said. Rents start at 45 cents a foot, triple net, for the flex spaces.