The cover of the Aug. 1, 2011, edition of the Northern Nevada Business Weekly.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week in 2021, we will feature snippets of stories that published a decade ago to provide readers a 10-year perspective of business news in the region. This week’s stories first published in the Aug. 1, 2011, edition of the NNBW.
Home sites remain anathema to investorsInvestors can snap up an unfinished parcel of land in Somerset for just $900,000 — a fraction of the $9.5 million owed on the property. Similarly, a piece of property in Fernley is listed at $850,000 — far less than the $10 million owed.Though land prices have fallen by as much as 90% for many unfinished parcels throughout the Truckee Meadows, buyers still remain scarce. The problem: They’d need to tie up funds for five years, maybe more, until they can develop the properties, says Mark Krueger, managing director of Grubb & Ellis/NCG.Krueger said the large number of finished lots combined with weak home sales in the region have kept land sales at a minimum during the first six months of this year. More than 3,300 home sites are ready for development in the region — a six-year supply at the current pace of new home sales.— Page 1, by Rob Sabo
Lenders’ sales of complexes helps stir apartment market
The recent sales of the Waterford Apartments and Waterstone condominiums in Sparks don’t necessarily point to a full-fledged return to strong markets for real estate investment, but they do represent a significant stirring in what’s been an extremely weak market the past few years.
The older 240-unit Waterford Apartments on Nichols Avenue sold to AJU Waterford LLC for $13 million, and the class-A Waterstone condos at Kiley Parkway sold to Waterstone Village LLC for $22 million. Both properties had been foreclosed upon and were sold by banks.
Prior to those sales, the last significant apartment transaction to occur in Northern Nevada was the $56 million sale of the 450-unit Montebello apartments on Summit Ridge in Reno in late 2008.
— Page 1, by Rob Sabo
Metals-mining industry set for growth in northwestern Nevada
The last time that the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology published its review of the major mines in Nevada, only a handful were listed in the northwest corner of the state.
And none of those mines in Washoe, Lyon, Douglas and Storey counties were producing the metals — gold, silver, copper — that are driving the state’s mining boom today.
Instead, five mines in the region employed a total of about 250 people who dug industrial minerals such as gypsum, diatomite and limestone from the earth.
That’s likely to be changing over the next five years. At least one major copper mine is progressing toward reality in the Yerington area, and a gold mining company hopes to overcome neighbors’ concerns to return mining to the Comstock Lode at Virginia City.
— Page 1, by John Seelmeyer
