Company buys half of Storey County with eye toward business development

The same partnership that owns the South Meadows Business Park in Reno and plans to open a Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealership next month in Carson City finalized the purchase of the 102,000-acre Asamera Ranch on June 8.

South Meadows Partners acquired the massive ranch that stretches from Interstate 80 to Stagecoach from Gulf Canada Resources Ltd. for an undisclosed amount. South Meadows and Gulf officials did acknowledge, though, that the sale price was near the $25 million asking price.

"It's a huge industrial player in anybody's book," said Lance Gilman, South Meadows managing partner. "We are delighted. It's like when you find an Easter Egg or being in the Super Bowl."

Large projects are nothing new to South Meadows but the Asamera Ranch acquisition adds a whole new dimension to a partnership that has 19 projects in Nevada, California and Arizona. The 1,000-acre South Meadows Business Park, home to International Game Technology and Lockheed Mountaingate, is the largest in Northern Nevada.

"If you figure we absorb a million square feet a year, it will take 70 years to build Asamera out," Gilman said. "I won't be around to see it finished. It's a pursuit of a lifetime."

The property makes up 54 percent of Storey County with a small portion spilling into Lyon County.

Kal-Kan and Kaiser Sierra Micromills opened plants in the past year on land immediately neighboring Asamera, creating attention for this freeway and rail frontage for industry.

"We're not looking at becoming a West Coast distribution and manufacturing center but a whole east-west international corridor," said Dean Haymore, Storey County's planning administrator and economic developer.

Even with 15,000 acres at Asamera already earmarked for industrial development, Haymore and the Storey County Commission have worked for years to plan development in a way to protect the environment and maintain the county's rural lifestyle.

"We're going to be in partnership and in concert with the environment," Haymore said. "We want to provide a rural quality of life that people want to come to."

South Meadows partners Don Roger Norman, Roger William Norman and Gilman plan to start with the northernmost 2,000 acres with another 4,000 acres expected to come into play in the next four months.

Gilman said two companies are already in escrow to build plants on 500 acres at Asamera. He did not name the companies, which had already negotiated with Gulf before plans to sell Asamera were announced in February.

"The land isn't going to sit," Gilman promised. "We develop and sell land. We don't sit on land."

Gulf Canada acquired Asamera Ranch in 1986 as part of buying the Asamera mining operation in Washington state. The Nevada land at that time was considered a remnant piece of property but in the past two years Asamera has teamed up with Storey County to develop the northern acreage.

The Asamera sale comes as part of an $850 million Gulf Canada debt reduction plan that includes selling its United Kingdom North Sea interests and half of its gas transmission and processing facilities in Alberta, Canada. Other non-oil assets are also part of the planned divestiture.

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