A rendering of Arcadia Cold’s Reno cold storage facility.

By Rob Sabo                                    Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Arcadia Cold’s ribbon cutting for its new 255,460-square-foot cold-storage facility at Tahoe Reno Industrial Center was an auspicious grand opening that was several years ahead of the company’s expansion plans in the Reno-Sparks market.

The cold-storage facility was actually a speculative development that was being built by Ti Cold, a specialty cold-storage contractor headquartered at Fort Wayne, Indiana. Arcadia Cold’s financial partner, Saxum Real Estate of Summit, N.J., acquired the building near the end of 2022, significantly hastening Arcadia Cold’s expansion into western region markets.

“The building came to us opportunistically, and we were thrilled to have it kind of fall into our laps because it would have taken us a lot longer to enter the market,” said Chris Hughes, Arcadia Cold’s president and chief executive officer. Hughes co-founded the company headquartered in Atlanta in May 2021 alongside principals at Saxum.

“It’s a wonderfully designed building that has the same specifications as if we would have constructed it as a build-to-suit facility like we have done with our other cold-storage facilities,” Hughes added. “We didn’t plan on constructing a building in Northern Nevada this early in our original site rollout sequencing, although being in the Reno-Sparks area was always on our list as part of our site selection strategy.”

Arcadia Cold is a third-party logistics provider in the cold-storage industry that primarily supports perishable frozen and refrigerated foods. Its main customers are food manufacturers, grocery retailers and food service distributors, as well as fresh and frozen pet food suppliers. The company operates additional facilities in Phoenix, Atlanta, Hazelton, Pennsylvania, and Burleson, Texas. It has another facility under construction in Jacksonville, Florida, which is scheduled to be operational in April.

The facility at TRIC is designed to serve a variety of customers, Hughes noted. The building is divided into five separate storage chambers, any one of which can be chilled from negative-10 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

“That is quite a unique attribute,” Hughes said. “It provides us and our customers the flexibility to move and store a variety of products.”

With internal clear heights exceeding 50 feet, the building can accommodate 37,260 pallet positions due to the higher racking clearances that greatly increases internal storage space by allowing five to six tiers of pallet storage racking.

“You get a lot of density per square foot for pallet positions within the internal footprint,” Hughes said. “That kind of layout design also allows for a lot more labor productivity.”

The additional height does require specialized forklifts and reach trucks that can extend up to that sixth level of the facility to pick orders for customer fulfillment, Hughes noted. All forklift drivers and reach truck operators are required to undergo rigorous certification and training processes, he added.

“We have been very fortunate here in Reno to hire forklift and reach truck operators who are fully certified to handle that equipment,” he said. “Reno is one of those locations where there are a large number of e-commerce-related firms, and that’s another reason why we like this area. There are a lot of quality industrial warehouses in this region, and we are really bullish about this location. The customer pipeline we have already built is reflective of that; a lot of customers are really interested in coming out here.”

Although it’s still ramping up business, Arcadia Cold accepted its first inbound loads last week. The company has hired staffing to meet its current needs and expects to onboard additional personnel and warehouse operators as it takes on additional customers over time. At full capacity, Arcadia Cold expects to employ 75 direct and indirect employees at its Northern Nevada cold-storage facility.

“We have been training and testing systems for a solid 45 to 60 days in advance of receiving our first pallet,” Hughes said. “That pipeline is well primed. The management and startup teams have done an outstanding job. Wherever we put our flag in the ground has to have access to quality labor, and Reno has a good pool of labor. That is something we have to be mindful of in our site selection criteria.

“We like this area because it is positioned well next to favorable infrastructure in Interstate 80 that supports east-westbound traffic across the United States,” Hughes added. “We also have the capability to deliver products into Northern California, Salt Lake City, Boise or points in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.”

Hughes also said that there’s increased need for modernized cold-storage facilities throughout the U.S. The average age of many existing facilities is greater than 40 years, he said, and product handling and energy usage requirements have changed greatly over that time.

“There’s a general need for newer facilities to meet the product handling requirements of 2023 and beyond,” he said. “We are putting brand-new high-quality assets into the market at a time where there are a lot of aging assets in the United States.”

Source:  https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2023/dec/12/tahoe-reno-industrial-center-facility-adds-new-level-of-cold-to-northern-nevada/

By Jessica Garcia                             Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Opportunities continue to grow for Northern Nevada’s industrial development and real estate market, including the steady interest of data centers, energy investments and a burgeoning workforce in the mix, a panel of experts said at a Northern Nevada Development Authority luncheon in Reno.

The NNDA’s “Business Edge” briefing, moderated by Western Nevada College President Kyle Dalpe on Oct. 26 at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa, offered various perspectives to industry leaders from a panel on the regional economic development and the industrial real estate outlook.

NNDA Executive Director Jeff Sutich said the topic was not previously embraced but deemed relevant given the current climate as the Reno-Sparks area or the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) have become hubs for manufacturing and distribution. The region continues to gain the attention of larger companies. Members spoke on the trends on Nevada’s major projects in the past decade or more that have opened the “floodgates” to real estate investments, construction and automation.

Jeff Brigger, director of business development for Nevada Energy and previously with the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, said recent inquiries from outside manufacturers and companies interested in the region’s offerings and space, likely is being driven by energy demands and automation. Brigger, who leads major accounts and economic development teams for the utility, said the state has seen major requests for logistics in infrastructure and is set up for transportation. It also offers the potential for high-voltage distribution with new projects on the horizon and has new water cooler technologies available in its southwest areas.

“You see companies that are transitioning fleets over to electric vehicle charging,” Brigger said. “But I think we want to talk about the data center industry off the charges in the last year or so. I think we’re fortunate to land big players like Apple and Google and Switch and others who were adopters of the big Northern Nevada market.”

Dalpe asked Kyle Rea, partner and chief operating officer of Tolles Development and president of the National Association for Industrial and Office Parks (NAIOP) in Northern Nevada, for his assessment on industrial development in the region. Rea addressed 2021-22 as a record absorption year for the market.

“We have good projects that are getting off the ground, and that’s fantastic,” Rea said. “But we’re seeing projects being put on hold because the money’s not out there like it used to be. … In TRIC, there’s a lot of lot of supply coming on the market. They have lot of supply coming on the market in the coming months, and as it gets delivered, we’re seeing it gets absorbed, which is encouraging.”

Rea said it’s important to remain mindful of quality development and for government to write “smart, thoughtful development codes” to help attract companies willing to invest in the community with good business.

“A few years ago, Reno updated its community development codes,” Rea said. “I would be aware if you’re in a community that you pride yourself on being development friendly, when I’m in the permitting office, sometimes that’s not actually the case. When you’re asking candidates what are they looking for in a city manager, you’re really looking for someone the business community can work with that has business sense and to figure it out.”

But achieving growth is more than just about land or buildings, the panel said. Bob Potts, deputy director for the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development, said closing major deals with major investors and companies involves offering an attractive workforce and a solid human resources strategy, which ultimately showing potential employees Northern Nevada provides quality of life in all aspects.

Potts, who leads the Governor’s Economic Advisory Council, said currently Northern Nevada’s unemployment rate averages 4.4% while statewide it’s 5.5% because Southern Nevada’s numbers are higher than in the north.

“Some say, ‘How can you have these high unemployment rates when you have such strong such job growth? Nevada had the fastest job growth of any state in the United States in September. Right now we’re sitting at 120,000 jobs above the pre-pandemic peak at statewide. Here, locally, it’s about 21,000 above pre-pandemic peak.”

Potts said this has changed consumer purchasing behaviors.

Brigger also discussed NV Energy’s upcoming Greenlink initiative, a two-phase project. Greenlink West comprises a 525-kilovolt line spanning 350 miles from Las Vegas to Yerington to be in service in December 2026. Greenlink North will be a 525-kilovolt line going 235 miles from Ely to Yerington and will be running in December 2028. There also will be three 345-kilovolt lines from Yerington to Reno.

The project will help generate approximately $690 million, create 4,000 jobs and produce clean energy in the state’s rural communities, providing flexible opportunities to industrial and residential customers, Brigger said.

Tomi Jo Lynch, first vice president of CBRE, addressed the influencing factors of the industrial real estate market and said the velocity of transactions has decreased in the past six months, noting investments are at a standstill for now.

“There were none in this quarter to talk about, but it doesn’t mean you can’t find something … so if you are looking, definitely talk to a real estate professional and come up with a strategy that works for you,” Lynch said. “As far as a leasing strategy goes, I’ve been advising all my landlord clients on lease renewals to push toward market rent, but be careful. There is a tipping point where tenants can’t bear the weight.”

She observed on a national level, manufacturing building saw a 23% increase in asking rents last year, and said approximately 150 manufacturing executives said they had planned to increase onshore manufacturing options in the past year as well.

She added, however, Northern Nevada continues to offer a business-friendly environment and strong building fundamentals and said “that won’t change.”

Sutich said the event was very successful and it was an opportunity to bring in new groups and banks who haven’t frequented the NNDA’s events before.

“We thought with everything going on with growth, the idea of a slowdown and capital markets getting tighter and companies wanting to come here and the economic process, we thought it would be a good time for the community to engage and talk about it,” Sutich said.

Source Link:  https://www.nnbw.com/news/2023/nov/07/nnda-panel-sets-stage-for-industrial-development-i/

Data centers to Northern Nevada: No signs of slowing

Data centers represent one of the hottest sectors of industrial development in Northern Nevada.

By Rob Sabo

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

A decade ago, the words “data center” weren’t often used round these parts.

Today, data centers represent one of the hottest sectors of industrial development in Northern Nevada. Apple kick-started regional data center development by investing more than $1 billion in its data center near Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. The facility is powered in part by a 19.9- megawatt solar installation near Yerington.

Apple was quickly followed by large data centers from Switch and Google. EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure recently announced plans to construct a 1.5 million square-foot data center at TRIC, and Novva Data Centers has a 20-acre campus with 180,000 square-feet of data center space. And earlier this month, data center park investor Tract of Denver purchased 2,200 acres of land at TRIC to construct the largest data center park in Northern Nevada.

It’s a burgeoning industry that shows no sign of slowing, especially in today’s technology-driven world. Northern Nevada’s affordable costs for power and land, coupled with a pro-business and regulatory climate and lack of corporate income tax, are just a few of the reasons why the data center industry has proliferated in the region.

Taylor Adams, president and chief executive officer of Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, told NNBW that the nascent industry has cemented itself in Northern Nevada and is here for the long term.

“We have created with our regional partners an environment that is right for this use,” Adams said. “We are one of the premier locations in America for data centers, and we are so excited to see the industry growing here.

“Data centers bring high-paying jobs, and job counts are a little lower,” Adams added. “Data centers are a great piece of business because they allow us to continue to grow our tax base and create economic growth in the region without the need for tremendous employee loads.”

Tract currently has the most ambitious plans for data center development in Northern Nevada. Its land investment will eventually accommodate a wide range of end-users, and its power requirements — Tract will bring 2 gigawatts of power to its data center park — are enough to power a medium-sized city.

Grant van Rooyen, chief executive officer and managing partner of Tract, unpacked the many attributes that make Northern Nevada an ideal location for data center facilities. State tax incentives, favorable power pricing rates, proximity to fiber routes and a great workforce are all fundamental to attracting data centers to Northern Nevada and Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, van Rooyen said.

“Interstate 80 is important because that’s where all the long-haul fiber is in this area. Data centers that can’t be connected to at-scale material connectivity starting at the fiber level are not particularly useful, so Northern Nevada is very well located in respect to fiber,” van Rooyen said.

“It’s also 3 milliseconds away from the Bay Area for data transmission. There’s much better power pricing, and the development environment from a regulation perspective is far more predictable for the companies that are in the business of vertical construction and delivering data center facilities.”

New data center hubs continue to proliferate in many areas throughout the U.S., and while the Greater Reno area may not have been on the data center roadmap much more than eight years ago, van Rooyen said, new locations quickly become “ordained” for data center development when they have all the right characteristics. Northern Nevada checks all those important boxes.

“Northern Nevada, and specifically, Storey County, have a wonderful set of attributes for data center development,” he said. “That is attractive today, it will be attractive tomorrow, and as long as public policy at the county and state level remains pro development and pro business, the use case will be attractive in this area for a very long time.”

Data centers have tremendous power requirements, and NV Energy was early in positioning Tahoe Reno Industrial Center to accommodate large power users, said Jeff Brigger, director of development and asset manager for NV Energy.

“We developed a pretty comprehensive transmission network plan for that entire industrial center,” Brigger said. “That plan has spurred a lot of this additional growth in the data center industry.

“We meet regularly with (Storey County) to identify high growth areas early on and make the plans we need to accommodate growth and support economic development throughout the state,” he added.

Those infrastructure investments are reaping current dividends, and future improvements to the broader statewide power transmission network will further improve reliability and capacity in Northern Nevada, as well as open up new areas for potential industrial and data center growth and renewable energy transmission. NV Energy’s Greenlink initiative will upgrade power transmission capabilities in Northern Nevada and support additional power load demands throughout the region.

The western portion of the two-phase Greenlink initiative will bring a 525 kilovolt transmission line 350 miles from Las Vegas to NV Energy’s Fort Churchill Generating Station just outside of Yerington, while the northern portion will do the same running 235 miles from Ely to Fort Churchill. The first line is scheduled for completion at the end of 2026, while the second is expected to be in service in late 2028.

From Fort Churchill, NV Energy will run three new 345-kilovolt lines northward. Two lines will terminate at Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, while the third will run to Reno to support additional load growth in the Truckee Meadows, Brigger said.

“This investment will support the entire Northern Nevada region,” Brigger said. “It’s really the lynchpin in developing the infrastructure we need.”

Jeff Sutich, executive director of the Northern Nevada Development Authority, told NNBW that NV Energy’s infrastructure investments will likely lead to additional data center development opportunities in Fernley, Silver Springs and Yerington.

“They are creating these big power corridors,” Sutich said.

Data centers also historically have required a great deal of water to cool their facilities. Companies at Tahoe Reno Industrial Center use effluent water from a pipeline connected to the Truckee Meadows Water Reclamation Facility at the east end of Sparks, said Austin Osborne, Storey County Manager.

And emerging data center cooling technologies will also enable lower water usage, said Sutich.

“A lot of companies are moving toward air cooling, and Nevada is perfect for that because we get such cool night time air,” he said. “It lowers the power and water constraints because you can bring that cold night time air into the data center to cool it off. That opens up the whole region when it comes to water (usage).”

One more ancillary benefit of Northern Nevada’s data center industry is that it’s highly recession-proof. Regardless of the direction of the national economy, the region’s data centers will be up and running 100-percent of the time and staffed by well-compensated technical workers.

“Regionally speaking, these types of uses are bringing high-paying, long-lasting careers to Northern Nevada that didn’t used to exist,” Storey County’s Osbourne said. “Tesla, Google, Switch and companies like them have transformed Northern Nevada forever and have enabled Northern Nevada to be somewhat immune from the boom-and-bust economy that once defined this area by diversifying and advancing our economy and ultimately the quality of life for Northern Nevadans.”

Tract Completes Acquisition of 2,200 Acres in Storey County, Nevada and Partners with NV Energy to Deliver Two Gigawatts of Power Capacity

Master-planned data center development expected to receive initial power delivery in 2026

October 02, 2023 10:03 ET| Source: TractFollow

DENVER, Oct. 02, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tract, a developer of master-planned data center parks, announced its recent acquisition of more than 2,200 acres of land inside the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRI) in Storey County, NV. The total acreage is comprised of two areas commonly referred to as the Peru Shelf and South Valley. In addition to the land, Tract also controls over 1,100 acre feet of water rights and has commitments from NV Energy to deliver over two gigawatts of power, beginning in 2026.

The greater Reno market has solidified its position as a data center cluster, with hyperscalers like Google, Apple and Microsoft establishing roots in the market along with wholesale providers like EdgeCore and NOVVA. These operators recognize the benefits of direct long haul fiber paths to the Bay Area offering three milliseconds of latency, while taking advantage of lower power costs, lower taxes, lower risks and lower regulations than they would face in California.

“We look forward to working with Tract on their future plans for northern Nevada and welcome them to the state,” said Governor Joe Lombardo. “As the Nevada economy continues to diversify, technology companies will be a key component of our growth.”

A key success factor in building a hyperscale data center ecosystem is scalable utility power. Tract has engaged with NV Energy to develop a long-term plan to bring over two gigawatts of electricity to the two Tract sites. “We have been working with Tract for nearly a year now and are excited to partner with them on these projects,” explained NV Energy President and CEO Doug Cannon. “These data center parks will be some of the biggest consumers of energy on our system. Tract’s approach of long-range planning allows us to engage and collaborate early to ensure reliable, affordable and sustainable power will be delivered.”

In addition to the data centers that have established campuses in Storey County, TRI has attracted billions in investment from technology, manufacturing and logistics companies like Tesla, Redwood Materials and Walmart. This convergence of economic activity was enabled by TRI’s forward-thinking development agreement, which allows for a wide range of pre-approved uses, seven-day grading permits, 30-day building permits and robust infrastructure managed by the TRI General Improvement District.

“We appreciate the relationships we have built with NV Energy, Storey County, TRI and the State of Nevada. We look forward to building on those partnerships for decades to come,” noted Grant van Rooyen, CEO of Tract. “Our customers are facing challenges resulting from their rapid growth. We believe our master-planned, shovel ready campuses will allow them to leverage our investments to gain the speed and certainty that they prioritize.”

Tract was advised by L. Lance Gilman Commercial Real Estate.

About Tract
Tract is a team of digital infrastructure experts dedicated to accelerating responsible data center growth. Tract acquires, zones, entitles, and develops master-planned data center parks to provide Data Center end users with speed and certainty. Tract land has access to pre-positioned power, water, and fiber in key markets where hyperscale and wholesale demand is going. Our approach is collaborative with cities and counties to ensure development is targeted for the optimal locations to maximize the revenue and economic development benefits for the community, while being good stewards of the land and minimizing the impact on neighbors. Tract is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with real estate holdings throughout the United States.

TRIC battery recycler, Redwood Materials, building a 5 million-square-foot space

Employees disassemble end-of-life EV battery packs.

By Rob Sabo

Thursday, September 7, 2023

The Gigafactory may be the largest industrial building under roof at Tahoe Reno Industrial Center — and in the state of Nevada — but a neighboring company is rivaling that massive operation.

Redwood Material’s 300-acre campus at Tahoe Reno Industrial Center already includes about 1 million square feet under roof, and there’s currently an additional 2 million square feet of building space under construction, said Don Tatro, Redwood Material’s director of state and local policy.

At full buildout, Redwood Materials expects to have more than 5 million square feet of building space, along with an 815,000 square-foot industrial building at Victory Logistics District in Fernley and its company headquarters on Lockheed Way in Carson City.

Founded in 2017 by former Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel, Redwood Materials is creating a circular supply chain to recycle materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper from spent electric vehicle battery packs and consumer electronics powered by lithium-ion batteries.

“Our feedstock is anything from the batteries in laptops, Air pods, tablets and cell phones to EV batteries that we refine into anode and cathode materials,” Tatro said. “If you plug it in and it holds a charge, we will take it.”

Today, Redwood currently receives about 40 metric tons of lithium-ion batteries annually, enough to power more than 100,000 electric vehicles, said Sonja Koch, Redwood’s senior communications and consumer program manager. At full recycling capacity, however, the Northern Nevada facility could handle enough material to create more than 5 million EV batteries each year.

Koch told NNBW that the vast majority of lithium-ion batteries being recycled in North America come through Redwood’s doors.

“We recover more than 95 percent of the critical minerals from those batteries, and then remanufacture the lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper into battery components that supply U.S. battery manufacturers,” she said.

Products are brought into Redwood Materials recycling campus and are broken down through Redwood’s hydrometallurgical refining processes and eventually are turned into anode copper foil and cathode active material. However, end-of-life batteries with residual energy go through a mechanical separation or calcination process that allows Redwood Materials to tap into that latent energy, Koch said.

“That allows us to power the process without the use of any fossil fuels,” she said.

Byproducts from the recycling process include gypsum, which is in drywall and other applications, and graphite that’s used to make industrial lubricants.

“We use every piece that comes in,” Tatro said.

The company’s supply chain was formed and built over the past few years, and it’s continually ongoing, Tatro said. In addition to a wide range of consumer collection points, it includes a range of corporate partnerships where returned and recalled items are sent to Redwood at all levels of the supply chain, Tatro said.

Tatro told NNBW the majority of companies in the lithium-ion recycling space recycle feedstock into what’s known as “black mass,” a dark powdery amalgamation of lithium, cobalt and nickel. Black mass material must be further refined, however, and to do that it has to be sent overseas.

“Our goal is to refine black mass in the United States,” Tatro said. “If you stop at black mass, it still enters the 50,000-mile supply chain to Asia, through Europe, and finally back here to the U.S.

“One of the biggest reasons we are refining all the way to battery-grade materials is to create a circular supply chain here in the United States,” Tatro added. “We are creating that closed loop system here on our Northern Nevada campus.”

Redwood Materials is the first company in the U.S. to produce anode copper foil from recycled materials, Tatro added. Some of Redwood’s operations, such as producing anode copper foil, are currently in production, while others are still scaling up as new space is being constructed and materials pipelines are solidified and expanded, he added.

Redwood Material’s facilities buildout is expected to continue over the next six years, Tatro noted. The company’s current headcount is about 800 employees, which is expected to jump to about 1,500 by year 2030.

Corporate partnerships include a multi-billion-dollar deal with neighboring Panasonic. Redwood Materials has worked with Panasonic since 2019 to reclaim any waste generated in Panasonic’s battery-making processes, and Redwood has supplied Panasonic with anode copper foil derived from recycled products since 2022.

At full production, Redwood Materials expects to produce enough anode copper foil and cathode active material annually to supply two-and-a-half Gigafactories, or enough battery material for approximately 5 million electric vehicles each year, Koch said.

Additional partnerships include recycling end-of-life batteries from Volkswagen and Audi EV vehicles, as well as lithium-ion batteries and products from Toyota, Ford, Volvo, Amazon, Specialized bicycles, Lyft e-scooters and several other companies.

The work Redwood Materials is doing in Northern Nevada will eventually be mirrored at a similar facility planned for Charleston, S.C. Redwood has purchased 600 acres in Berkeley County to construct its Battery Materials Campus 2, Koch told NNBW. The company is expected to invest $3.5 billion in the facility that’s in the heart of a region being called the “Battery Belt” due to the burgeoning presence of lithium-ion battery gigafactories and manufacturers.

“It’s in close proximity to a lot of partners we are working with and will be working with very closely in the future,” Koch said. “We plan to build step-by-step and continue buildout of downstream component manufacturing for anode copper foil and cathode active material.” 

Like the Northern Nevada campus, the recycling facility in South Carolina will be 100 percent electric and won’t even have a gas line to the facility, Koch added.

“Our innovative plant design and manufacturing process allows Redwood to reduce CO2 emissions of these products by about 80 percent compared to the current Asia-based supply chain that we are dependent on for these crucial materials,” she said.

Redwood Materials is moving as quickly as it can to meet the exploding demand for EV batteries that’s coming from the regional, national and global battery manufacturers, Tatro said.

“We are supplying battery manufacturers for the first time ever in the United States. That plays a key role in the success of our region and the state, but also for national security interests by decreasing our reliance on foreign sources of these materials.

“By having those operations here in Nevada and the U.S., we are not only driving a circular supply chain that can power the next fleet of electric vehicles, but also increasing U.S. manufacturing capabilities and strategic priorities for the nation,” Tatro said. “That is one of the most exciting things about Redwood and what we are doing in this space.”

Gilman touts ‘TRI-II’ in Fernley as future data-storage hub

The TRI II project is planned for a plot of private land on the south side of Fernley west of Highway 95A and east of the Storey/Lyon county line.
Photo: Colleen Unterbrink

By Ray Hagar Nevada Newsmakers

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

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With all the land in the expansive Tahoe-Reno Industrial Complex (TRI) sold to tenants like Tesla, Switch and Google, developers Lance Gilman and Roger Norman Sr. have been quietly laying groundwork for their planned Tahoe-Reno Industrial Complex-II, just east of the original TRI on Interstate 80 near Fernley.

Plans for are moving slowly – but surely – since the land needed for the project has a "checkerboard" layout with a mix of private and federal land.

Gilman and Norman have already secured more than 10 square miles of private land. However, buying federal land is not easy. Literally, it takes an “act of Congress” to make it happen.

“Congressman (Mark) Amodei is very positive that we are going to get through the House this year,” Gilman said on Nevada Newsmakers recently, referring to the U.S. House of Representatives.

After that, the bill must be approved by the U.S. Senate, where Gilman will rely on Nevada’s Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen to push the bill through.

“I'm hopeful,” Gilman told host Sam Shad. “It is amazing when you enter the world of the federal government, how things slow down.”

Gilman sees TRI-II as a future data-storage hub, suggesting Microsoft might have interest in locating a facility there.

Microsoft already has a facility in the original Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. Early this year, the company announced it had purchased 274 acres of vacant land for $16.425 million near Silver Springs.

The tech center planned there “will be very similar to what Apple and Google have built within the region,” Microsoft executives said in January.

Data centers are already booming in the Reno/Sparks/Fernley area already as Switch, Apple, eBay, and Google all have a data-center presence here.

“From a data-storage component, they need about three locations,” Gilman said of Microsoft. “It has to be a certain number of miles apart and it has to be safe, so if they lose one, they have a duplicate.

“In Microsoft's case, they have property in TRI, in Comstock Meadows,” Gilman said. “So they are doing a project now. The building is actually under construction.

“And they have their property down at Silver Springs and we would expect they would move out to TRI-II, in that area, and that will be the third leg of the stool.”

Gilman sees rural Northern Nevada, with its dry climate and open spaces, as a “prime” location for data storage.

“When you look at the criteria they (data companies) have for a site location: Safety, removed from freeway, and in areas where they are comfortable that it is safe for storing all of this data,” he said. “And then they need about three hubs.

“Nevada offers a lot of topography that works,” Gilman continued. “We have the expansive property. They are not going to develop in the Reno region, for example.

“They are going to go (east) and that's why I believe that our rural counties are in the cat bird’s seat for what I call high-dollar (developments),” he said.

“A data storage building might cost $600 to $800 a square foot to build, maybe more than that,” he said. “And so the investment is wonderful.

“The payrolls that they pay are way above average,” Gilman continued. “But they don't need to employ great numbers of people, so they are not impacting us all with the (auto and truck) traffic. But they bring a lot of wealth and a lot of demand.

“They also bring in a lot of other small companies, that want to keep an eye on their servers and all of the other stuff they have stored.

“So it brings in a lot of growth and wealth but not quite the impact a major (company) like Tesla might bring – with all of the employees and manufacturing. So it is an interesting industry and I think it will do well to have it in Northern Nevada.”

Water, of course, is the limiting factor for development in rural Nevada and TRI-II is expected to be nourished by importing water from another source, Gilman said. He hinted some water may come from the Humboldt River near Winnemucca but gave no specifics.

"We are looking at (water) importation projects that have some viability," he said. "So I think within the next 10 years, we will see that component come up."

Some of the planned developments in the Fernley area may not have enough water to make their project viable, Gilman added.

“We're comfortable in moving forward with TRI-II but some of the surrounding projects are going to have to line up and figure out where their water is going to come from," he said.

REAL WORTH OF TESLA: Tesla recently announced plans to invest $3.5 billion to build a semi-truck factory on its property in the original TRI.

It was great news but the biggest financial impact of Tesla and the other companies at TRI gets little attention, he said.

"When I look at the money Tesla has invested in the ground, I think that is secondary in some ways to the payroll they are generating," he said. "The payroll Tesla is generating, along with some of the companies that are coming in now, you're talking about $1 billion in payroll."

He later added: "That is really the fruit of the opportunity."

Link:  https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2023/aug/08/gilman-touts-tri-ii-in-fernley-as-future-data-storage-hub/

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New Novva Tahoe Reno data center will feature robotic dog security, 6 large data halls

Utah-based Novva Data Centers, which specializes in building colocation data centers, will construct its newest facility at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.

Jason Hidalgo

Reno Gazette Journal - Published May 9, 2023

A Utah-based company is building a large data center just east of Reno-Sparks with several sustainable design features and even robotic dogs.

Data centers are known for consuming massive amounts of energy, leading to concerns about their environmental impact. Water use is also another issue, particularly in Nevada’s high desert.

For its Storey County facility, Novva Data Centers is implementing several measures to help reduce its environmental impact. 

To reduce energy usage, Novva Tahoe Reno will use radiant heating and cooling, as well as a process known as direct-to-chip cooling, which directly cools a chip’s silicon surface.

Novva Data Centers announced on Monday that it will build its newest facility on a 20-acre site at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center in Storey County. The facility, named Novva Tahoe Reno, is expected to be completed in 2024 and have 40 to 50 employees. Novva also has data center sites in Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs and Las Vegas.

Novva Tahoe Reno is the latest addition to the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, which gained recognition after landing Tesla’s first Gigafactory in 2014. Today, the industrial park’s tenants include big tech names such as Google and Switch, whose campus there is one of the largest data centers in the world.

“Storey County is a growing tech hub centrally located to major Western cities with access to renewable energy alternatives and attractive sales and use tax abatement programs, making it an ideal location to continue our expansion in the Western U.S,” said Wes Swenson, founder and CEO of Novva Data Centers, in a statement.

Novva specializes in building colocation data centers, which provide data center space for several tenants.

The 300,000-square-foot Novva Tahoe Reno facility will feature six 10-megawatt data halls, each with 30,000 feet of space and a wide open design that maximizes the available area for tenants. Amenities include offices, meeting rooms, break rooms and shower facilities.

One of the more interesting aspects of the facility is its security measures. In addition to perimeter gates with 24-hour monitoring, Novva Tahoe Reno will use autonomous aerial drones as well as robotic dog monitoring. 

In 2021, Nova announced a partnership with Brigham Young University for the Wes’ Industrious Robot Employee or WIRE robotic dog. The robotic dog can confirm occupants through facial scanning and recognition and monitor temperatures for proper data storage.

The dog can also be programmed by staff to carry out various tasks and missions. It can even audibly greet guests to the facility.

“At Novva, our goal is to be the most future-focused new data center campus in the world,”  Swenson said in 2021 when the partnership with BYU was announced. “WIRE exemplifies innovation and the future while addressing crucial data center needs and providing a one-of-a-kind experience for patrons.”

Data centers are known for consuming massive amounts of energy, leading to concerns about their environmental impact. Water use is also another issue, particularly in Nevada’s high desert.

For its Storey County facility, Novva Data Centers is implementing several measures to help reduce its environmental impact. 

To reduce energy usage, Novva Tahoe Reno will use radiant heating and cooling, as well as a process known as direct-to-chip cooling, which directly cools a chip’s silicon surface.

Novva will use drought resistant landscaping and employ proprietary technologies such as using a synthetic material known as polypropylene instead of water for cooling.

Local officials praised Novva’s focus on sustainability.

“Novva's sustainability-first mindset fits well with ongoing environmental initiatives spearheaded by the county,” said Lara Mather, Storey County’s business development officer.

“Data center facilities like Novva's make the area even more attractive to prospective business residents,” Mather said.

Link:  https://www.rgj.com/story/news/money/business/2023/05/09/new-novva-tahoe-reno-data-center-to-have-robotic-dog-security/70196942007/

Feb 7, 2023 Updated Feb 7, 2023

Tahoe Reno Industrial Center Continues to Grow

Developer: North's ‘industrial eco-system’ moving east of Reno-Sparks

Ray Hagar | Nevada Newsmakers

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Northern Nevada’s "industrial eco-system" is shifting east of the Reno/Sparks area, a leading Nevada developer said on Nevada Newsmakers.

In Southern Nevada, said Par Tolles of the Tolles Development Co., industrial growth could come south of Las Vegas on the Interstate 15 corridor, although that may hinge on federal legislation.

"Land is more and more difficult to come by both in Northern and Southern Nevada," Tolles told host Sam Shad on Jan. 11. "The Truckee Meadows, if you will, from the airport to north of Stead, is getting to the point where it is almost built out.

"So we have to go east (in Northern Nevada) and you can talk about all of those budding sub-markets, Silver Springs or Fernley, even Hazen," Tolles continued. "Our industrial eco-system is going to be predominately moving to the east."

Tolles is not alone in his assessment. Lance Gilman, developer of the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Complex, just east of Sparks, said recently on Nevada Newsmakers that Fernley – 34 miles east of Reno/Sparks – "is in the epicenter of what is going to happen over the next 10 or 15 years in Northern Nevada."

Southern Nevada's future development may hinge on the approval of the Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, which was proposed – then tabled – in Congress last year by Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev, after it took heavy fire from rural Nevada representatives.

"In Southern Nevada, I think the lands bill has to get passed at some point to allow the opening up of I-15," said Tolles, whose company has purchased about 200 acres off I-15 near Jean with plans to build a warehouse/distribution center. He said construction will begin in May or June and the real estate deal on the final 60 acres will close in a few months.

"We got lucky," Tolles said about the purchase. "We bought about the only feasible piece of land between Las Vegas and, call it Henderson. In Primm there is some (land for development) but everything else is BLM owned. The path of progress is to the south and the lands bill will be very important for future development."

Major international and eastern U.S. companies are viewing both areas as ideal logistical hubs, which has long been a selling point, Tolles said.

In Northern Nevada, logistics have helped secure the Tesla gigafactory, Panasonic and other major corporations at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Complex. From Reno, businesses can truck almost any cargo to anywhere in the western U.S., in one day, transportation leaders have said. An interstate highway and transcontinental rail line also run through the middle of town.

"We seem to be the prettiest girl at the dance right now from a West Coast perspective and it’s kind of what we have been waiting for, for a long time," Tolles said.

Surprisingly, Reno is closer to China's capital of Beijing than Los Angeles because Southern California angles to the east. Beijing to Reno is 5,918 miles while Beijing to Los Angeles International is around 6,250 miles.

Investment money for Reno and Las Vegas is no longer limited to California or the western U.S., Tolles said.

"I would say that it is broader than that," he said. "I would say international money, certainly multiple-family offices across the country, large pension plans and insurance companies are all interested in Nevada. We have four notable large institutional partners around the insurance industry that have put in calls to us in the last six months, for opportunities.

"We (Reno) have always been on the radar as a secondary city and for all of the things we have talked about, we can get overnight to 11 western states from Northern Nevada and more of the southern and western United States from Las Vegas."

Tolles predicts more investment from outside sources will be coming to Reno and Las Vegas in the future because of the areas' logistical advantages.

"If you were an East Coast or Midwest Fortune 500 company that needs a West Coast presence and you want to have a logistics center on the east, in the middle of the country and in the west, Reno or Las Vegas will most likely be in your top two or three choices," Tolles said.

Development in Nevada, however may be temporarily stymied by rising interests rate, Tolles said.

"It is affecting every aspect of the business, every product type," he said. "But short term rates dictate the ability to build. It's been going up. We could be a lot more speculative in the past because we had time to absorb the cost of those interest rates."

THE FUTURE

Tolles predicted 2023 will be "bumpy" for developers but sees better days in 2024.

"I think it is going to be a bumpy 2023," he said. "I think it will be as volatile as 2022. I don't think it will be a crash landing. I think it will be a soft landing but I don't think we'll see a real recovery and it all driven by interest rates.

"Interest rates go up really fast and they come down a lot slower," Tolles added. "But I think we'll start to see a break in the interest rates around 2024. We, as a development community, we live and die by that. So it's sad. I think there is a lot of demand out there and a lot of good redevelopment that we could be doing. I think we're all tapping the breaks until we see a softening. We need to know what our building is worth before we build it.

"As long as interest rates are moving around, we don't know what that margin is between what we can build it for and exit for," Tolles said. "So we watch that very carefully. I think it is a survivable 2023, bumpy, but survivable. But I think we'll really start to see it turn around in 2024."