EDAWN confirmed the State of Northern Nevada's economy is good. They say there are a lot of positives happening in the northern part of the State, seeing a lot of investment and advancement with innovative companies.
Taylor Adams, the President and Chief Executive Officer of EDAWN says “State of the economy is strong and we’re looking for a great 2025 and beyond.”
He says they're optimistic because 18 months ago EDAWN had about 34 total leads they were looking at for inbound businesses. Fast forward to today and they now have 108. They worked in the last 12 months, and in February they've had 134 active projects at work which they hope to use to advance the economy.
Adams adds “We’ve seen in the last two years some economic headwinds. Things are always difficult in a presidential election year, but one of the great things we know is the economy always expands on the back end of that election. We just have to have the election to know which part is going to expand.”
Brian Gordon, the Principal with Applied Analysis says northern Nevada is tracking over $50 billion in development projects just in northern Nevada. That includes everything from education facilities to technology companies and infrastructure.
He explains “All of that is going to pay dividends in the community going forward. There are a number of markets around the country that would love to have that level of investment taking place but it’s all happening right here.”
However, they say we still have some challenges to deal with.
Some of the challenges they mentioned include high home prices, health care challenges and education challenges.
They say these are things that growing communities do face but they say we're on a positive path.
As for northern Nevada in comparison to the national economy... Nationally the economy is doing well. We're seeing expansion and investment.
As for northern Nevada? Gordon says, “We’re seeing population grow. We’ve had a rapid clip, we’ve seen over 90,000 people in the last decade. We’re going to probably bring in another 60,000 people over the next 10 years so there aren’t many communities that experience that level of growth.”
Home prices are also on top of mind for a lot of people with prices over $600,000.
They say with more people coming in they're bringing more income with them and a higher educational attainment with them, which is contributing to the evolution of the northern Nevada economy.
We also asked about the probability of a recession.
Gordon explains “The probability of a recession is starting to recede. Just a few years ago we had about two thirds of national economists saying a recession was on the horizon in the next 12 months and we're now down to about one our of five economists forecasting a recession, so that chance has diminished over time.”
As for tariffs and federal funding freezes affecting our local economy, they said they always want to keep an eye out for what's happening on the federal level.
Gordon says “We’ve got a pro-business environment that hopefully can weather some of the storms that may be on the horizon.”
Adams says “I’m certainly concerned about tariffs in the short term, however it is important for us to know that we’re looking forward. If those tariffs ultimately result in more manufacturing back to America, I think that’s great for northern Nevada and we’re uniquely positioned to benefit from that activity.”
They also said manufacturing employment growth had dropped nationwide but has grown significantly here.
Gordon explains more in depth “As we think about the manufacturing sector, the Reno market has been pretty impressive in that regard. We saw the national job market in terms of manufacturing positions basically been cut in half since the 1990’s. Right here in Reno we’ve seen that number double as a share of the overall economy so we’re seeing more investments, more jobs and more opportunities.”
