S&S Activewear signed a lease to an 800,000-square-foot building in the North Valleys Commerce Center, making S&S Activewear the largest occupant of a pre-built facility in the history of Nevada.  The facility is expected to bring 350 new jobs to the Reno area when it opens in early 2019.  The new facility is the first in the S&S Activewear network to be powered by solar. The initial design for the facility will include about 30,000 square feet of solar panels on the roof deck.

"This creates jobs - that's really, really important," Mayor Schieve said during a morning press conference at the North Valleys Commerce Center. State or local governments didn't offer any incentives to S&S Activewear to come to Reno. Instead, the move was motivated by the company's desire to expand its one- and two-day shipping capabilities along the West Coast, which Reno is perfect for.

Doug Roberts, a partner in the Panattoni Development company, which owns the building and the rest of the North Valleys Commerce Center, said they built the $50 million facility without a pre-arranged lessee. The market for real estate like this in Reno is good enough they we're confident it would get filled. Reno is one of the biggest per capita industrial markets in the country," Roberts said.

"Obviously, over the last four years we've had tremendous success in Northern Nevada and it just keeps on continuing," Mayor Schieve said. "I'm really proud. " Specifically, the distribution center will create roughly 350 jobs. Construction on the project is slated to wrap by the end of 2018, and the center is slated to open on March 1, 2019, said Doug Roberts, partner with Panattoni Development Company.

"It's great," Roberts said in an interview. "It talks about the vibrancy of the economy and the distribution market within Reno itself. We're in the middle of 11 western states, so from a distribution pattern, Reno is right in the middle of it. So companies that take this kind of space in a market like this, it really speaks volumes to how good of a location we're in."
Jim Shannon, president of S&S Activewear, said that's exactly why the company was drawn to Reno. With the completion of its Reno warehouse, S&S will have a national footprint of over 3.5 million square feet.  "The facility is especially important to S&S in that it will allow us to add much more products and provide faster delivery times," said Shannon, referring to the company's ability to reach most of the West Coast with one-day ship times.   "This building incorporates many energy and water saving design features," Shannon said. "We're looking forward to the final stages of construction, staring the hiring process, and getting the business up and running in this new state-of-the-art facility."