The Nevada Pacific Parkway connection to U.S. Highway 50A will not be completed until late 2028 or early 2029, according to remarks made by Mark IV Capital Senior Vice President Rick Nelson at the April 1 council meeting.
The matter came up during a discussion of a related issue, setting up a working group to address financing for the gas-fired power plant Mark IV plans to add to the Victory Logistics development.
During that discussion, Councilman Albert Torres questioned whether it was “getting ahead of ourselves” by concentrating on the power plant when Nevada Pacific Parkway is still not completed.
“I’d like to see the Nevada Pacific Parkway done before we start building something else out there this big,” he said.
Nelson said both projects are being pushed forward simultaneously and that the parkway project is moving as quickly as possible.
“Being sequential is not going to help us, being simultaneous is,” he said. “We’d like to move quicker, but we have four different review cycles for everything we do and unfortunately, everyone gets a say, and that say has to be addressed. That just takes time.”
Nelson said the parkway plans are now 60 percent complete, with a goal of reaching 90 percent in May and 100 percent by July. At that point, Mark IV will come to the council with a proposed assessment district within the Victory Logistics district to pay for the road, with construction beginning shortly thereafter.
The council adopted a petition last July from Mark IV Capital for the city’s first private property special assessment district to link Nevada Pacific Parkway between Interstate 80 Exit 50 and U.S. 50A at an estimated construction cost of $114.75 million. Under the guidelines of that petition, only the property owners within the district who benefit from the improvements would pay for the bonds issued under the district, with annual assessments proportional to each property owner’s benefit.
Nelson said last August the project would be built without using money from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant the city was awarded in 2022.
“It’s hard for people to understand. They think the grant provides us free money,” Nelson said in August. “It does not. It is a funding mechanism that has a lot of bureaucracy with it. And so, to utilize the grant actually costs the contract more money.”
Nelson said the overpass is the longest portion of the project, estimating it will take about 18 months to build.
“We have to build it, it’s got to settle, and then we have to close down the UP main line periodically to put the piers over it,” he said.
If everything goes smoothly, he predicted the parkway will be completed and open by late 2028 or early 2029.
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