Northern Nevada’s network for storing and distributing goods sees a big year ahead in 2018.
Developers are bullish, and one in particular, Panattoni, will show it with mammoth new warehouses planned for north and south Reno.
Meanwhile, for those who operate within those buildings, the past year was already a good one. But at least one company, locally owned ITS Logistics in Sparks, is taking it to a loftier level in the coming year.
“Last year I could not give such a positive outlook, but this year, I give you a bullish outlook throughout all of 2018,” CEO Greg Sanders told the Northern Nevada Business Weekly in late December. “There are a lot of good things happening and we’re very bullish on that.”
It’s a convergence of several factors, he said. Manufacturing is up and consumer confidence is rising. The rebuilding of infrastructure after natural disasters in California, Texas and Florida will hit full stride, with impacts stretching far beyond those states.
And then there’s the geographic ace card: No matter what the economic conditions, the Northern Nevada region sits in an ideal location reachable within a day’s drive to major cities up, down and around the West Coast.
Sanders also points to the maturation of retailing in the world of e-commerce, hence the proliferation of major warehousing sites — Amazon, Zulily and Walmart, among others — that has brought a host of still more to the local arena, notably at the 106,000-acre Tahoe Reno Industrial Center east of Sparks, as well.
“It’s where supply chains are going. Most every retailer now is getting really good at e-commerce,” Sanders said.
The fastest-growing segment of ITS Logistics’ business plan is its non-asset brokerage, which has grown in five years to a team of 70 or more brokers doing $100 million in revenues as it assists ITS customers in moving goods outside of ITS trucks’ geographic territory.
