REI Plans New Store in Henderson
Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), a national retail cooperative providing outdoor gear and clothing, recently announced plans to open a store in April 2004 in Henderson in a new lifestyle center called the Shops at Green Valley Ranch at the intersection of I-215 and Green Valley Parkway. This is REI’s first store in the Las Vegas area. Its Reno store opened in 1999. REI has 2,500 active members in the Las Vegas area. While anyone may shop at REI, members pay a one-time $15 fee and receive a share in the company’s profits through an annual refund based on their purchases. The 22,500-square-foot store will employ 50 full- and part-time staff and provide REI’s full line of outdoor gear and clothing for hiking, camping, climbing, cycling, paddling and winter sports. A gear rental department will encourage people to try outdoor sports. The Henderson store will include a camp-stove demonstration area, a water-filter testing station and a hiking-boot testing rock, plus space to climb into tents and heft backpacks.
Las Vegas Monorail on Schedule for Opening
Developers of the Las Vegas Monorail recently announced that the $650 million transit system running in the Las Vegas resort corridor should be completed $23 million under budget and on schedule to begin revenue service by March 1, 2004. The monorail will link eight major Las Vegas resorts with more than 24,000 hotel rooms, and nine convention facilities, including the Las Vegas Convention Center. The four-mile system will connect the MGM Grand and Sahara hotel-casinos on a route running east of and parallel to the Las Vegas Strip. Plans call for the monorail to eventually connect downtown Las Vegas and McCarran International Airport. The fare for a one-way trip on the Las Vegas Monorail will be $3, with round-trip fare costing $5.50. The monorail will run 20 hours per day, from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., 365 days a year. The monorail system is owned and operated by the Las Vegas Monorail Company, a non-profit corporation whose board is appointed by Nevada’s governor. The monorail company has engaged Transit Systems Management, LLC to administer all monorail-related contracts for the non-profit corporation. Bombardier Transportation is overseeing construction of the entire system and Granite Construction is the civil contractor. Gensler Architects is the master architect and Carter-Burgess is the engineer of record.
Washoe Medical Opens New Hospital
Washoe Medical Center South Meadows, which will begin accepting patients this month, will be the first new hospital in over 20 years in the Reno area. Construction, which began in October 2003, was prompted by the increasing demand for healthcare services in the fast-growing South Meadows area, where emergency services, acute-care beds and operating rooms had not increased as quickly as the population. During the 10-year period from 1990 to 2000, south Reno’s population increased at nearly twice the rate of the greater Reno-Sparks area. Washoe Medical Center South Meadows is situated on an 18-acre campus just off the Highway 395 South Meadows exit, near the Double Diamond master-planned community. The existing building, which opened as Washoe Village in 1999, is being expanded to create space for new critical care, medical-surgical and telemetry units, as well as long-term acute care. Two new buildings are being added: The Pavilion, a 51,000 square-foot diagnostic and treatment center, and The Terrace, a 66,000-square-foot medical office building. The Pavilion’s 24-hour emergency department will feature 10 bays, and advanced imaging and laboratory services are located adjacent to the emergency area. Surgery services will feature four large suites for inpatient and outpatient procedures. Inpatient lab, EKG and advanced imaging services, including MRI, CT, ultrasound, and general radiography and fluoroscopy, are located nearby. Nuclear medicine, mammography, and additional surgery suites will be available in the future. More than 500 staff will be on board when the hospital opens.
SBC Brings High-Speed Internet To Rural Nevada
SBC Internet Services (SBCIS) has announced plans to deploy SBC Yahoo! DSL high-speed Internet access to eight communities in rural Nevada. SBC’s deployment of DSL in rural Nevada responds to the passage in the last legislative session of Senate Bill 400 (SB400), which created a regulatory environment that promotes a “level playing field” between all broadband providers. Residents in Fernley, Washoe and Dayton have already received access, while the communities of Hawthorne, Lovelock, Pahrump, Silver Springs and Verdi will have availability sometime in 2004. Subscribers can choose between several different bandwidth and price plans to match their online needs and budgets, and Internet services can be bundled with other SBC services on one bill.