Report: Tesla revving region's industrial market

The Tesla touch on Northern Nevada keeps growing.

The electric car maker's announcement earlier this month that it will build a $5 billion battery gigafactory sparked a 10 percent jump in asking prices for some large for-sale industrial buildings in the region, a report Monday said.

"We also noticed a big increase in interest for available for-lease space anywhere close to the new Tesla plant" to be built in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center east of Sparks, Tom Miller of Reno-based Miller Industrial Properties wrote in his third-quarter report.

"Some long-time vacant buildings have received full-price offers to buy and are now into escrow," Miller wrote. "Those examples are just some of the tangible evidence that the Northern Nevada industrial real estate market is once again alive, well and ready to experience its next big growth spurt."

The July-September period, the report stated, "may be earmarked as a historically significant time" for the region's industrial sector thanks to Tesla's choosing Northern Nevada over four other states for its manufacturing plant expected to open in 2017 and employ up to 6,500 people.

Two weeks ago in a two-day special session, the Nevada Legislature enacted $1.2 billion in tax incentives to pave the way for Tesla to build the gigafactory starting as soon as the end of the year.

"The most immediate effect of the Tesla news has been the burst of nationwide interest from the real estate investment community," the report stated. "The sentiment from investors seems to be that if you are not invested in Northern Nevada, you are missing the boat."

The Miller report estimated the overall industrial market vacancy rate at 8.48 percent for the third quarter, from a low of 1.49 percent in the Reno South submarket to a high of 12.8 percent in the biggest submarket, Sparks.