The Grand Sierra Resort's billion-dollar expansion project is about to get the ball rolling.
On Wednesday, Reno's Redevelopment Advisory Board approved about $61 million on tax incentives for the project.
"At the end of the day, everybody won," said Alex Meruelo, Owner of the GSR. "The city wins, GSR wins, the University wins, council wins, we all win and that makes it a great deal."
Work is expected to begin here shortly.
"We're breaking ground in June," Meruelo said.
However, the developers will have to lay the foundation before they get to the fun stuff.
"So, we're able to start, but the next few months are going to be, let's call it, not as sexy to do," said Christopher Abraham, Chief Marketing Officer, Grand Sierra Resort. "Some underground work, sewer work, that type of thing."
The timeline is sort of up in the air still, but Abraham says it has a deadline.
"I think in the next 30 to 60 days we'll have a really strong handle on what the schedule is," he said. "We know we have an end date, we know we need to be open by the summer of 2027, so it's really working backwards from there."
He's referring to the arena and about 2,800 spot parking garage.
Then the aqua golf and the community ice rink will follow suit.
The University of Nevada turned out to the meeting Wednesday to support this project.
"It will help us to attract better student athletes, the highest quality or caliber that we could ask for," said Brian Sandoval, President, University of Nevada, Reno. "It's going to allow us to raise more revenues that will help all of our sports, and for our fans, it will give them an incredible experience."
The 10,000-seat arena will be home to the Nevada men's basketball team.
The team's head coach thinks it'll give them a leg up when it comes to recruiting big time talent.
"It changes everything," said Steve Alford, Nevada Wolf Pack Head Coach. "Alex [Meruelo] has been huge with our NIL. He's helped keep us relevant and now this is a next step when you can have a very powerful NIL plus facility that's going to be state of the art. Our students are going to love it."
With the unpredictability of the economic outlook with tariffs and the stock market, Meruelo says he understands it's a big risk, but he 100 percent backs his decision to invest into the project.
