Reno Rolls the Dice
On a Sports Play

Construction on the long-awaited minor league baseball stadium in Reno, Nev., is finally expected to begin as the region continues to reposition itself from a struggling gambling resort into a 21st-century destination that offers slots, slopes, and other activities.

The new project comes at a time when other parts of Reno's real-estate industry are facing difficulties. Problems in the region's once-booming housing market -- one of the harder hit in the country's residential real-estate collapse -- are spilling over into the rest of its economy throughout the metropolitan area, home to about 401,000 residents.

Construction of the 10,000-seat facility is expected to begin early next year on a nearly nine-acre piece of property that now contains a weekly motel and a fire station. About two blocks from the city's main drag of Virginia Street, the project will be funded in part with as much as $32 million in proceeds from county-issued bonds that will be backed by a car-rental tax set up in 2003.

The sports facility is moving forward as Reno has faced increased competition for gambling dollars, including from Indian casinos in California. Gambling revenue in the city of Reno totaled $767.4 million for the fiscal year 2007 which ended in June, about 9% below the recent peak of $843.7 million in the fiscal year of 2000, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

At the same time, the Reno region has worked to promote its outdoor-sports offerings. The Lake Tahoe area has long offered skiing, but downtown Reno has some newer draws: a whitewater kayak and rafting park opened on the Truckee River in 2004. Developers and city officials said the stadium project will include a retail component with boutiques and restaurants that will help pull more residents in from the suburbs. "It's an opportunity to bring Reno into Reno," said Mark Lewis, the city's redevelopment administrator.

The stadium is being developed by Nevada Land, a partnership comprised of Herbert Simon, chairman emeritus of the board of the Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group Inc. and co-owner the Indiana Pacers National Basketball Association basketball team, and Jerry Katzoff, owner of a chain of restaurants known as Il Mulino, and his son, Stuart Katzoff, a New York City-based real-estate developer. A separate partnership also controlled by the same men plans to move a Triple-A baseball team from Tucson to play in the new Reno facility by spring of 2009.

Stadiums as a means of jumpstarting development have been controversial. Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College who has studied the correlation between stadiums and economic development, said the Reno facility itself isn't likely to draw anyone from outside the region to visit though it might have some success if the goal is simply to relocate economic activity within the metropolitan area. Mr. Lewis said Reno minimized its risks by making sure the cost of operating the facility as well as any cost over-runs on construction, will be borne by the developers.

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