North Las Vegas is a cash-strapped city, and is facing a $152.5 million long-term budget deficit. It has an economic outlook so bad that the city once contemplated receivership, Nevada’s untested alternative to bankruptcy.
Despite the city’s grim outlook, Mayor John Lee is looking to use the kind of tax credit and abatement allowances that Nevada lawmakers offered Tesla Motors to build a $5 billion battery factory near Reno. Lee hopes developing an initial 800-acres of Apex Industrial Parkwill generate billions in regional economic activity and create thousands of jobs, saving his home town.
Apex’s lack of infrastructure, however, has made it hard to lure businesses to the facility. Lisa Cole, vice president of Land Development Associates LLC, said she’s been able to lure business through infrastructure issues and slowly get some development going.
But, Cole, who helps attract new Apex tenants through the permitting process, told KNPR that her company has never been able to fix Apex for the long run. Cole said Tesla Motors toured the 20,000-acre industrial park, before choosing to build its $5 billion factory in Northern Nevada.
“Tesla could envision their project on our facility,” Cole said. “We had one thing that was really the big hurdle that we couldn’t overcome, and we can’t overcome it today, which was the proximity to their Northern California location.”
Cole said the rail line from Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., to Reno is what set them apart. “So other than that they could have been our partner,” she said.
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Lisa Cole, vice president, Land Development Associates LLC
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