Nevada has always been a land of rapid change. From unprecedented growth to economic drivers, the Silver State adapts quickly. Due to the state’s adaptability, economic development and the needs of Nevada can be constantly shifting, and agencies looking to grow and help the state thrive need to stay on the forefront of that change. In order to do so, it’s important that stakeholders regularly meet to discuss the current needs of Nevada and the best ways to address those needs.
Last month, Southwest Gas gathered stakeholders to do just that. Moderated by Tina Quigley, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance (LVGEA) these executives met in an open forum to discuss the state of Nevada and how to rise to some of the opportunities available. Panelists included Jeff Brigger, director of business development and major accounts for NV Energy; Justin Brown, president of Southwest Gas Corporation; Peter Guzman, president and CEO of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, Nevada; Aaron Ibarra, chief of staff for Southern Nevada Building Trades Unions; and Paul Moradkhan, senior vice president of government affairs for the Vegas Chamber. The group discussed challenges and opportunities for Nevada.
Opportunity 1: Land The Scarcity and How it Affects Nevada
Visitor’s looking at a map of Nevada would no doubt assume the state has hundreds of acres of developable land. The state’s two largest population centers are grouped on either end with little but empty land between them. Unfortunately, and somewhat surprisingly, that empty land does not belong to Nevada, it’s Federal land. This becomes a source of frustration for those looking to grow the state.
“It drives me absolutely crazy,” said Guzman. “We should be the most competitive because when you drive around, you see land. You see nothing but land in this state, except, we don’t control it. The Federal government does to the tune of 80, plus percent.”
Brown added that, when compared to Nevada’s neighbor’s land can be a real sticking point. “When you look at Arizona, they’ve become the microchip epicenter in manufacturing. A lot of that is because of the availability of land,” he said.
“From the land availability, it is a federal issue,” added Moradkhan. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican, Democrat, north or south, you want to see another public land bill. That has been a challenge for the state, trying to work with the Bureau of Land Management in releasing additional land. The inventory they control is about 85 percent, it’s hundreds of thousands of acres within Clark County; millions throughout the state.”
Citing a study completed for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) by RCG Economics last year, Quigley added, “We’re down to about 5,000 acres of easily developable land we’ve got in the [Las Vegas] Valley.”
Opportunity 2: Housing Making it Affordable & Available
In addition to the land issue, affordable housing presents challenges. Just in the past few years home prices in Nevada have skyrocketed going from one of the most affordable places to live to requiring potential homeowners to need a minimum of a six figure salary to buy, according to an October 2023 report from Redfin. Another report from Bankrate indicated Nevada home prices have risen by 26.3 percent in just the past three years.
“I have read that we have 85,000 families that would qualify for affordable, dignified housing if it were available, but it’s not available,” said Quigley. “That’s a really big deal.”
“If I’m being honest, I’m not quite sure we’re working toward a solution,” said Guzman. “When politics gets into it, it messes up the water. On the housing part, that’s a shame because there are solutions all around us. You have to release this land and allow capitalism, entrepreneurs and public private partnerships to exist.”
“We have a [program] called AFL Housing Investment Trust where we use our own private funds to try to invest into some affordable housing,” said Ibarra. “We’re starting to see some of these investments realized where we can offer two to four times the amount of public dollars being used to build [a] development.”
“I wish I had a silver bullet,” added Brown. “It starts with the control of the land because, otherwise, how do you deal with that simple supply and demand economic issue of availability when you’re constrained by land. Until that gets fixed, you’re just talking about it.”
Brigger added, “I agree. It’s a supply issue. Without that land, we’re not going to be able to address it.”
Opportunity 3: Water Nevada’s Responsible Use
In addition to a dire need for land and housing, Nevadans, and the entire southwest, are faced with a need for water. As a state, Nevada has been a good steward of water. However, the Silver State’s neighbors haven’t been quite as responsible.
“We are the only state relying on the Colorado [River] that has a 50-year water security plan,” said Quigley. “Anybody who is here right now, and has been promised water, is water secure for the foreseeable future.”
“The reality is, as we’ve gone through a 20-year, plus, drought, this community has managed its assets exceptionally well, have been very aggressive [in conservation],” said Moradkhan. “We are not in crisis.”
Opportunity 4: Education Workforce Supply & the Employee Pipeline
In trying to spur economic development, stakeholders continually run up against the issues of employee pipelines and education. “The biggest challenge to economic development from my viewpoint is education. It truly does matter,” said Guzman.”
“We know that education systems, higher and lower, will educate to the level that is required by the primary industry of the region,” said Quigley. “In our region of course, our primary industry is hospitality and gaming, a lot of service employees.”
She added that the pandemic closures brought additional pressure to diversity the economy, thereby changing the education needs. “There was a mass outcry,” she said. “We have to diversify. It’s harder than you think because to bring in these new industries that are going to continue to make us prosperous, we have to have the education system that matches their needs.”
“Workforce is interesting,” said Guzman. “There’s a history here of service-style workers. We really have got to move away from that now because, to be competitive in bringing these bigger, skilled companies here, they’ve got to feel comfortable moving their entire operation to a place where there’s enough workers to do that job. I don’t think we’re there quite yet. But I think we’re getting there.”
“I’m excited about this conversation,” added Ibarra. “Sometimes it feels like we have too much workforce. Right now, we have more than a thousand people sitting on the bench from various trades.”
He added that there are several programs available to those looking to work, the challenge is in connecting the programs and the people. “Right now, especially the younger generation, they’re looking at college a little bit differently,” he said. “I’m here to make the argument that apprenticeship should be a standard we push for more and more.”
“There’s a lot of other opportunities within the utility business that I think a lot of people don’t really appreciate,” said Brown. “We’ve made an effort to reach out to the schools in our service areas to have relationships with them [and] to educate people about these opportunities.”
“The utility business is very unique,” agreed Brigger. “You have a variety of different opportunities from trades all the way to engineering, technical finance and cybersecurity.” He also agreed that collaboration is an important part of workforce development and added, “One of our advantages here in southern Nevada is the ability to convene the folks that are necessary to help companies identify the employees they need. I’m not sure that’s the case in other areas. When we sit down with companies when they come to our market, they’re very surprised we can sit down with a variety of stakeholders at one table to identify their needs and work through solutions. That gives us a competitive advantage in this state.”
Opportunity 5: Abatements Give to Get
Abatements are a large talking point when looking to move businesses to the area. Companies want a “good deal” so to speak and, when considering a move, abatements become an important part of the conversation. Especially when Nevada’s competition is similar in other ways, such as tax structure, abatements can be the make or break of a deal.
When it comes to this topic, “policy matters,” said Moradkhan. “It’s always a balance in terms of those conversations about what attracts a business to Nevada.” He added that, “The state took an important step in 2011 when they collaborated with GOED, Brookings Mountain West and SRI [International], and established the state’s first economic development plan. That really identified where our weakness are, but also where our opportunities are. Following those type of roadmaps are important for all of our conversations but also to help leverage LVGEA, and other groups, about those abatements. It’s not just about money.”
“Universally, there’s a very bipartisan understanding that the abatement program we have right now, the incentive program, needs to be modernized and updated,” said Quigley. “It does need to be, not just a one size fits all, but really being crafty and targeting the companies and industries we are trying to attract for the sake of prosperity.”
Opportunity 6: Utilities Public/Private Partnerships
Another important aspect to new growth is ensuring the company’s have the utilities they need to conduct business. “When we talk about ecosystem, one of the critical parts is affordability and availability of energy. Not only does it need to be affordable, we have to have access to it,” said Brown.
“We’re seeing unprecedented growth with companies interested in the state with very large electric loads,” said Brigger. “It takes a well-coordinated approach to serve all of this growing load. It’s a great opportunity for the state.”
“A challenge we’ve always had, if we wanted to extend our facilities into an area, [there needed to be] an anchor tenant that was going to fund it,” said Brown. “The legislature addressed that issue by creating a policy where we could go out and extend our facilities to underserved, or unserved, areas and incorporate those costs as part of our rate structure. We’ve had some great success with that, in Mesquite, for instance.”
“It can’t be understated what you did in Mesquite,” said Guzman. “I talked to the mayor there and a lot of business owners, my neighbor owns the CasaBlanca. He told me it was a game changer for Mesquite. That simple act of natural gas there created economic development.”
Opportunity 7: Brightline Impact on the Economy & Workforce
Of all the many projects and changes coming to Nevada in the form of economic development, one project in particular has been moving steadily to the forefront for the state. “We had a very exciting groundbreaking that happened a couple weeks ago, Brightline,” said Quigley. “It is the nation’s very first true high-speed rail system.”
The Brightline West High Speed Rail Project which, when complete, will run from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga with future projects taking the train even further. The project received a $3 billion boost from the Federal Department of Transportation and is part of a planned $12 billion Las Vegas to Los Angeles plan. In addition to moving people, Brightline West is anticipated to spur employment, development and opportunity.
“It’s 10,000 total jobs, 3,000 jobs here in Nevada,” said Ibarra. “Then the thousand jobs that are going to happen after, for the permanent jobs, that’s going to create stability here.” He added, “The economic development that’s going to come from the tourism [the train] brings is going to be immense. We’re very excited for that project.”
“It’s also going to relive a lot of stress on the I-15 in terms of trucking, distribution centers and congestion, which then elevates some of the environmental concerns about car pollution,” said Moradkhan. “It’s a win for all of us, from labor, business community, the state and local government. It’s one of those success stories where everybody benefits and will grow from it.”
“Alleviation of the traffic is going to be a big deal,” agreed Brigger. “That’s going to help logistics companies, certainly. The other piece we’ve got to build is infrastructure to support [the train]. That brings our infrastructure further out and opens up some other opportunities as well.”
Brown added, “Relieving the congestion [on] such a main commerce pipeline to southern California is going to be more beneficial than probably we can even calculate right now. You’re going to see that relief and its’ going to open up things. Economic development begets economic development.”
Nevada’s Strengths
While adaptability to growth has been a hallmark of Nevada’s history, through the years the Battle Born state has added a few more strengths to its economic development toolbelt.
To conclude the forum, Quigley asked each of the panelists to indicate what they felt were the biggest strengths of Nevada. They agreed that cohesiveness, problem-solving and commitment are pillars Nevada can stand on when compared to other states.
“Our strengths are, when we come together as a community, we can achieve a lot,” said Moradkhan.
“We have the ability to convene the stakeholders pretty easily in this community and get things done,” said Brigger. “That’s a huge strength we need to continue to play on.”
“People [in Nevada] are committed to the diversification of the state and continuing to attract diverse businesses which is going to help from an economic development standpoint,” said Brown. “Culturally, there’s going to be a shift and culture changes take time. That steadfast commitment to diversification is important [and] we’ve got the right people in the state involved in these discussions.”
Ibarra added, “Nevada is very creative when it comes to problem solving. We’re a unique state where we have people from both sides that are willing to come together and come up with some creative solutions to get things done. That’s going to continue moving forward the amount of economic development we see coming to the state.”
Guzman concluded that it all comes back to Nevada’s adaptability. “Where we got this is our ability to make things happen and happen fast. We talked about a stadium, we built it and we just had a Super Bowl,” he said. “Our ability to do things creatively, but do it fast, is what makes us better than most other places.”
