Bass Pro Coming To Reno

RENO, NV-Bass Pro Shops is planning to open a mega-retail store here at a proposed resort hotel and casino. The 50-acre resort is being proposed by publicly held Station Casinos Inc. for a site at the south end of the city, near Mt Rose Highway and Interstate 395.

The news comes eight months after its publicly held competitor, Cabela’s, announced plans to build a 150,000-sf store on 38.5 acres of land near the Boomtown Reno casino and hotel off Interstate 80 near the California border. Bass Pro Shops president Jim Hagale says the Reno store will be its “grandest” to date, but a company source says the square footage of the proposed store has not yet been determined. The flagship of the company’s 33-store portfolio–in its hometown of Springfield, MO–has more than 300,000 sf of retail floor area. Its Las Vegas store is about half that size, which is closer to the stores’ average size.

Bass Pro Shops typically include laser arcades, climbing walls, archery ranges, fine gun rooms and outdoor education classes. The Reno store also will include a boat showroom and service center.

Station Casinos has optioned the land for the project from Bayer Properties Inc. If approved, the project will rise adjacent to Bayer’s Summit Sierra, a 650,000-sf open-air upscale shopping center that is part of a 110-acre mixed-use development at the south end of the city. In so doing, Station hopes to have the same kind of success it has had with Green Valley Ranch Resort, Casino and Spa in Henderson, NV, which was developed adjacent to The District at Green Valley Ranch, a mixed-use retail, office and residential development.

Station Casinos also has optioned two other parcels in the Reno area: an eight-acre parcel across from the Reno-Sparks Convention Center with plans for a boutique hotel-casino, and a 96-acre parcel at Geiger Grade Road and South Virginia Street for which no plans have been announced.

Down in North Las Vegas, Station announced this week it has entered into an agreement with Greenspun Corp. to develop Aliante Station, a hotel and casino in Aliante, a 1,905-acre master-planned community in North Las Vegas being developed by American Nevada Corporation and Del Webb Communities. Station will develop and manage the facility, which will be located on a gaming-entitled 40-acre site on the northeast corner of Interstate 215 and Aliante Parkway.

The agreement calls for equal ownership of the project, with Station receiving a management fee. Station anticipates breaking ground on the project by late 2006 or early 2007. Subsidiaries of Greenspun and Station are partners in Green Valley Ranch.