Developers trying to put USA Parkway on the fast track

Developers could finish an 18-mile road connecting Highway 50 in Silver Springs and Interstate 80 east of Sparks in 18 months if they can get approval and funding, a representative for the builders said Tuesday.

The section of USA Parkway running through the 104,000-acre Tahoe Reno Industrial Center in Storey County will be graded within six weeks, Vince Griffith, a representative for the park, told Storey County commissioners Tuesday. The grading will take the road to the Storey County-Lyon County line.

When completed, the road would put Silver Springs within a half hour of Reno.

The road could add 20,000 jobs to the 5,000-person workforce at the park alone, Griffith said.

"This would be putting the TRI Center on steroids," he said.

Developers hope to get funding through the federal stimulus bill and right-of-way approval from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to help finish the $40 million privately built road, Griffith said.

Six miles of the road in Lyon County already is approved by the Highlands Group, a private developer the industrial park is working with.

Developers need approval from BLM for the final one to two miles the road would run through in Lyon County.

BLM will have to do studies and hold public meetings to determine if it will give developers the land, said Mark Struble, an agency representative.

Struble said developers could avoid BLM land if they wanted to, but that would make the road longer and the project more expensive.

Lyon County supports finishing the road, said county manager Dennis Stark, but it wants to make sure USA Parkway is a state road.

The county declined to apply for the right-of-way for the industrial park because of this, he said. It doesn't have the money to maintain the road, he said, and didn't want to get stuck with the bill.