While I ain’t no architect nor property tycoon, even a blind horse can see that it’s high time we quit building fresh barns when the old ones still hold hay in the rafters.
In parched and sunbaked lands of Northern Nevada last year, a curious thing happened—business folks with more common sense than vanity bought up office buildings instead of throwing money into the rental wind. Colliers says over half of 2024’s 65 office sales got snapped up by companies who aim to use ‘em, not flip ‘em. Imagine that—folks buying buildings not to wring ‘em dry for a profit–but to work in’em.
The big fish investors stayed on shore, thanks to interest rates higher than a preacher’s collar on Sunday. They dallied, waiting for the numbers to come down from the mountain, like Moses with the tablets, while smaller outfits have been scooping up 2,500 to 7,500 square foot spots like prospectors with a hot tip.
Now, I won’t pretend to understand all the arithmetic, but word has it that building prices dropped from $259.15 a square foot to $219.38 in just two years, enough to make a miser blink. And while West Coast cities like San Francisco and Seattle have office vacancy rates so bad you could hear an echo when you toss your hat in, Reno’s sittin’ steady at 9.1 percent. The place might not be a juggernaut of high-rises and hedge funds, but it’s got grit, backbone, and more than 10 million square feet of office space—which is more than enough for folks who don’t insist on their desk having a view of Alcatraz or the Space Needle.
There’s talk—always is—about developers getting ready to bless us with new buildings now that the vacancy numbers are slipping under that magic 10 percent line. But before we go slicing up the sagebrush to pour new concrete, let’s pause. Reno’s got buildings with good bones and better stories—why leave’em empty to build fresh ones that’ll be vacant before the carpet glue’s dry?
They say the Meadowood submarket’s the belle of the ball with its $4.10 per square foot price tag for the fancy Class A spaces. That’s fine and dandy, but maybe fill up the downtown ghosts before raising any new steel skeletons.
Even now, developers like Ahlquist from Boise are reworking the old Harrah’s into 133,691 square feet of Class A office space right in the beating heart of Reno. That’s a step in the right direction. Turning the old into new keeps history breathing and pigeons off the rafters.
In short, if you’re one of those high-minded types itching to sketch up something shiny and new, stroll past the empty lobbies and lonely elevators already standing. They ain’t haunted—they’re just waiting on someone with imagination and less ego.
Because truth be told, a building ain’t worth a blick if nobody’s in it. And this country’s already littered with the bones of brand-new things no one wanted.
Let’s use what we got before we chase after what we don’t need.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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