The Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRI Center, or TRIC) is a privately owned 107,000-acre (167 sq mi; 430 km2) industrial park, located in Storey County, east of Reno, Nevada, and south of Interstate 80.[1][2] The center is the largest in the United States (third largest in the world),[3] occupying over half of the land mass in Storey County, and is home to more than a hundred companies and their warehouse logistics centers and fulfillment centers such as PetSmart, Home Depot, Walmart and others.[4]Gigafactory Nevada was built there to serve Tesla, Inc. and Panasonic.[5] According to Benchmarkia, Tahoe-Reno Industrial Centre is the sixth largest industrial park by area in the world.[6]
In 1995, Storey County saw an opportunity in the open area close to rail and highway, but isolated from residential areas to avoid disturbance.[9] Mars/PetSmart became the first tenant.[10] In 2020, TRIC was one of the areas depicted in the art exhibition "Countryside, The Future" by architect Rem Koolhaas at the New York Guggenheim Museum.[11][12]
Private extension
In 1998, private developers bought 102,000 acres of the adjacent Asamera ranch (formerly McCarran ranch) from Gulf Canada for $20 million cash,[9][13] and the area was zoned as "I-2 Heavy Industrial" in 2000, including retail.[9][14] About 30,000 acres are developable.[15] It operates as a public–private partnership, where the owners provide $5 million for the county to support TRIC. The owners also built infrastructure such as roads, rail, gas, power, water, and sewer, and are reimbursed with 35% of the tax paid by the tenant companies to the county.[9][16] The owners built the six-mile, four-lane USA Parkway between TRIC and I-80 for $60 million in 2007 as the second access, along with rail spur.[13][17]
In 2009 TRIC had 4,500 employees on 11 million sq ft of buildings,[9] growing to 14 million sq ft in 2014,[17] and 5,000 employees in 2015, increasing to over 18,000 employees by 2018.[18] The additions have contributed to economic activity in the Reno area.[19][20][21] The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) took over USA Parkway for $43 million in 2015, extending it for $70 million to U.S. Route 50 to cope with projected increasing traffic.
