Long-planned factory taking shape in Henderson
A massive new factory that’s been in the works for years is taking shape in Henderson.
Haas Automation is under construction on its roughly 2.5 million-square-foot manufacturing plant just south of Henderson Executive Airport. Walls are up, and the company expects to have the shell of the building in place by year end, said Peter Zierhut, vice president of outside operations.
Zierhut, in an interview this summer, said Haas is scheduled to start operating the facility in early 2027.
The plant has been on the drawing board since before the pandemic. Zierhut said that the project faced delays due to the fallout from the public health crisis and that the company wanted to secure better pricing on its construction materials.
He noted that the price of steel, aluminum and other building materials soared after the pandemic hit, and that Haas worked with vendors “to sharpen their pencils and come up with better quotes.”
The factory’s size hasn’t changed, but as Zierhut described it, the total cost climbed from around $350 million to about $500 million.
Land sale and tax breaks
Haas makes machine tools for other manufacturers and is building a big footprint in Southern Nevada, a region that relies heavily on tourism to fuel its casino-packed economy and isn’t known for having much manufacturing.
Haas is based in Oxnard, California, but plans to move all of its manufacturing operations to the west Henderson area.
The Henderson City Council in February 2019 approved selling 279 acres of city-owned land — located along Via Inspirada south of Volunteer Boulevard — to Haas founder Gene Haas for about $27.4 million.
The Governor’s Office of Economic Development approved $10.5 million in tax breaks for the venture in June 2019. According to the tax-incentive application, the factory development was slated to cost around $327 million.
The city’s land sale to Haas closed in November 2019. At the time, Zierhut said the company expected to start grading land the following April and to finish the plant in 2022.
Months later, however, the coronavirus outbreak turned life upside down.
Extension request
Haas broke ground on the project in fall 2020. But in late 2023, project manager Valerie Draeger sent a letter to city officials asking to extend the completion date in Haas’ development agreement from April 2024 to the end of 2026.
She cited pandemic and supply-chain issues and increased construction costs. Draeger, president of Triliad Development, noted that construction had started three years earlier and that Haas had spent more than $100 million on a range of site work, including grading the land and installing underground utilities, city records show.
Haas eventually held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the plant in fall 2024.
Haas, which sold back 44 acres to the city in 2020 for about $4.4 million, also plans to build about 1 million square feet of commercial space that would be sold or leased to other companies, Zierhut said this summer.
He said that Haas would start construction on that section around the time it finishes its factory.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
