—$30 million joint venture with Belay Investment Group leads acquisition of 209,000 square foot future business and creator space—
Foothill Partners Incorporated (“Foothill”), in a joint venture with Belay Investment Group (“Belay”), has acquired for redevelopment a vacant 209,000 square foot former Lowe’s Home Improvement in the high-growth market of Sparks, Nevada. The redevelopment project will be an Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (“ESG”), arts-based technology, flex, R&D campus called The Oddie District.
The Oddie District project site is located at 2450 Oddie Blvd in Sparks, Nevada. It is the largest vacant big-box building in the Reno/Sparks metro. Foothill will repurpose the building into creative office, flex-tech R&D, lab spaces, maker spaces, food and beverage offerings and work-live studios for artists and entrepreneurs. The construction for this project is scheduled to start late in 2021 with a planned opening date of its first phases in August 2022.
The project has already signed two major tenants: The Generator and The Innovation Collective. The Generator is a nonprofit maker space, which serves as a creative resource for Northern Nevada community members along with artists and engineers whose work frequently appears at Burning Man. The Generator will anchor the maker space component of the project, occupying 35,000 sq. ft. The Innovation Collective, based in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, is a business accelerator and collaborative co-working space that mentors and incubates promising technology companies. The Innovation Collective will occupy 12,500 sq. ft. at The Oddie District.
“We are thrilled about this project,” said Doug Wiele, founding partner and president of Foothill Partners. “The Generator is a cultural icon of Reno/Sparks; to provide it a long-term home, to surround it with working environments for design, engineering and production companies, and to build together a broad culture of innovation and creation will be great for Sparks and for the region. To pull all this together in the shell of a vacant big-box retail building makes it all the better. We look forward to attracting the kinds of businesses that can help us build culture at The Oddie District.”
Another 100,000 square feet of flex-tech space at The Oddie District will become home to technology, research, engineering, software and design companies. An additional 16,000 square feet of food and beverage shops will be available, including room for an 8,000-square-foot brewery/distillery that will open onto a covered, open-air seating area and an events stage.
Foothill and Belay acquired The Oddie District as part of a joint venture partnership. Barry Chase, Managing Principal and CEO of Belay said, “We are thrilled to be working with Foothill on the business plan execution of the Oddie District. Foothill’s creativity and wealth of retail experience coupled with their active civil engagement, has led them to a history of delivering projects that are sensitive to the local market needs, such as the intended mix of usage at the Oddie District.”
“We are honored to be teaming up with Belay to acquire The Oddie District,” said Wiele. “Belay‘s outstanding reputation of cultivating emerging managers makes them the ideal partner to further develop our growing platform and continue to add value to the communities we serve.”
About Foothill Partners, Inc.
Founded in 1994 by Douglas Wiele, Foothill Partners, Inc. is a daily-needs street-retail / mixed-use commercial property developer / owner based in El Dorado Hills, California and operating in Northern California and Northern Nevada. Foothill acquires, develops and operates properties in partnership with private and institutional real estate equity funds. Foothill Partners’ purpose is the re-integration in our communities of the Center of Commerce, the Center of Culture and the Center of Community in One Place™. Visit www.foothillpartners.com for more information.
Foothill Partners Incorporated has not received or provided any cash or any non-cash compensation in exchange for the statements made in this press release. As a result of Belay’s investment into the Oddie District, Foothill and its personnel have an incentive to make positive statements about Belay and the Oddie District redevelopment project.