Steve Heim, Vice President and General Manager, REV Recreation Group, Inc. announces his company’s plans for a new southwest regional service facility for recreational vehicles at the Mesquite City Council meeting Feb. 24. Heim credited Mesquite Regional Business Inc. and George Gault for helping make the site selection a positive one. Photo by Barbara Ellestad.
Out of 50 to 60 possible locations in a six-state region, REV Recreation Group, Inc. settled on Mesquite as home to a new southwest regional service facility for recreational vehicles that will begin construction this fall.
“We give a lot of credit to MRBI (Mesquite Regional Business, Inc.) in the critically important process of selecting Mesquite for our new service facility,” said Steve Heim, Vice President and General Manager with the company. “George Gault and the MRBI staff were an impressive part of our decision-making process.”
The formal announcement of the company’s decision to build the facility was announced at the Mesquite City Council meeting Feb 24 and first reported in the Mesquite Local News, Feb. 18.
Heim said the company’s initial plans called for a 40,000 square foot facility with about 40 service technicians and 10 staff positions. REV also planned to later expand the building to 80,000 square feet and about 70 employees. “We may just start at the 80,000 square foot size with 70 employee positions,” Heim said. At that size the company expects 1,500 to 2,500 service appointments annually.
“We’re so convinced of the demand for this kind of service in this region that we’re going to need the larger size facility quickly,” Heim said. “We haven’t made the final decision on it yet but it’s under serious consideration.”
REV purchased an 11 acre site on Commerce Circle in the Mesquite Technical and Commerce Center (MTCC) on the west side of town next to the current Star Nursery for $450,000. It’s the second major business announced in the last three months for the MTCC after the 333 Eagles Landing purchased 105 acres from the City of Mesquite in December and announced it plans to construct a travel plaza.
While Eagles Landing received economic development incentives from the city REV Recreation Group did not.
Heim said his company began looking for a new service site in July 2015 when they realized the southwest area of the country has more motor home registrations at 4,149 than any other region. The next largest concentration of registrations is in the southeast with 2,895.
A new recreational vehicle service facility is planned for 11 acres in the Mesquite Technical and Commerce Center next to the current Star Nursery. Construction will begin this fall on a 40,000 to 80,000 square foot facility that will employ up to 70 workers.
Three real estate companies brought 50 to 60 potential sites to senior managers. Lisa Hauger, Vice President, Sun Commercial Real Estate Inc. in Las Vegas introduced them to Mesquite.
Heim and REV President Jim Jacobs visited the site in November expecting to be in town only a very short time. “But when we got here, George Gault had set up meetings with Mayor Litman, several council members, city staff, representatives from the College of Southern Nevada, workforce development people and a couple local construction contractors. We had a uniquely pleasant meeting with all of these people. We have never felt more welcome than we did in Mesquite,” Heim said. “I told Jim ‘Wow, it’s nice to know they want us as much as we want to be there.’ Our experience was phenomenal.”
The company began purchase negotiations on the acreage in November and closed on the sale in January. Heim said two important criteria were easy access on and off a major highway and having the necessary workforce available. Construction of the new I-15 Exit 118 interchange met the first criteria. “Roundabouts are not the ideal ingress/egress for big RV motorcoaches,” Hauger said. “It was a tremendous show of support that the local college would take an interest in helping us train the workforce that we’ll need,” Heim said of the second criteria.
CSN and Mesquite Works, the newly formed non-profit workforce development organization will develop the necessary training programs for diesel mechanics, electricians and construction workers the company will need.
“The planned travel center at Exit 118 and the nearby Solstice RV resort also appealed to us when we were looking for the ideal place,” Heim said.
Depending on the final construction size, the service facility will have 20 to 40 bays with paint and collision repair capacity. RV parking will be nearby.
The next three months will be consumed with architectural, engineering and contractor work along with securing permits and other compliance documents. The company-supplied timeline shows construction beginning in the September or October timeframe. Between May and July 2017 the company expects construction to be nearing completion with staffing and training takng place in that timeframe. Heim foresees operations beginning between August and October 2017.
REV is a $1.7 billion company headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that manufactures motor vehicle brands serving recreation, commercial, fire and emergency markets including buses, fire apparatus trucks, ambulance vehicles, sweepers, terminal trucks and mobility conversion vehicles. It has three regional technical centers similar to the one planned for Mesquite in Decatur, IN, Coburg, OR and Alvarado, TX.
