A Great Monument to Dirt Moving in Fernley

The good folks at Mark IV Capital have made it their mission to see how much of Nevada they can dig up and rearrange before anyone notices. Their latest endeavor, the Victory Logistics District in Fernley, has just wrapped up its first phase, filling nearly 2 million square feet with industrial space and setting the stage for an even grander display of dirt relocation.

With a groundbreaking ceremony set for Friday, the developers will now turn their attention to what they call “critical infrastructure”—a phrase that here means paving roads, laying water lines, and making sure the future tenants of this 4,300-acre behemoth have everything they need to distribute, manufacture, and otherwise contribute to the grand march of industry.

The sprawling monument to economic ambition first made headlines in 2019, when it claimed the title of Nevada’s second-largest land sale—surpassed only by an even more audacious purchase at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, or the TRIC, that has become so flush with factories and warehouses that one might expect the air itself to hum with the sound of commerce.

The second phase of Victory Logistics will see some 600 acres graded and another 1,600 acres opened up for whatever futuristic enterprise wishes to stake a claim. Among the prime targets are “hyperscaler” facilities—which sounds suspiciously like something an overzealous marketer dreamt up but refers to colossal data centers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. These digital fortresses require such an astounding amount of computing power that they demand an entire infrastructure.

To accommodate such needs, Mark IV Capital will be busy installing new data pathways along Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 50, paving four miles of roads, laying more than five miles of water lines, and digging over six miles of storm drains. They plan to move nearly 3 million cubic yards of solid earth—a volume equivalent to 880 Olympic-sized swimming pools or, for those with a taste for vertical comparisons, the Empire State Building.

Once completed, Victory Logistics District aims to be an all-purpose industrial hub, welcoming manufacturers, distributors, and any business that prefers its facilities tailor-made to order. To sweeten the deal–the project will boast renewable energy options, a private railcar switching facility, and a transloading hub for companies that like their cargo to switch from train to truck with minimal fuss.

While some might say this grand industrial effort will bring prosperity and efficiency to the region, others might argue it’s a high-tech way to shuffle around vast quantities of earth and concrete in pursuit of commerce. Either way, the folks behind Victory Logistics District appear determined to see their vision through—one hyperscaler, one road, and one cubic yard of dirt at a time.