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Suburbs headed southwest?

Developers plan West Village center for Las Vegas Beltway near Durango

A group of developers investing billions of dollars in the southwestern Las Vegas Valley is working on a plan to turn the area into a major suburban center called West Village.

They have formed a marketing consortium for a corridor that encompasses about 700 acres around Durango Drive and Sunset Road.

With potential for 10,000 residential units and 8 million square feet of commercial space, West Village has the critical mass to become what author Joel Garreau calls an "Edge City."

The idea is to optimize land and offer an alternative to traditional suburban sprawl by creating dense nodes of residential and commercial development along the Las Vegas Beltway, said Frank Beck, chief development officer for Las Vegas-based Centra Properties.

He said West Village would incorporate urban-style residential living with employment, retail and amenities now unavailable in the market.

"We all believe that Durango and (Interstate) 215 has the potential to be something very special," Beck said. "We are working to support the creation of a master-planned feel, share information, get the best design possible and to make sure the right mix of uses is brought to that location. With the location and entitlements, we believe it has the best possibility of becoming a suburban downtown."

Some of the projects already proposed for the area are The Curve, a 45-acre mixed-use development with high-rise residential condos and retail; Project Durango, a joint venture between Centra Properties and KB Home to build a mix of urban residences and 750,000 square feet of commercial on 65 acres; and the Durango Station hotel-casino, which will provide an entertainment core for West Village.

"Las Vegas is one of those places where nobody believes it'll happen until it actually exists, and then they say, 'Wow, this is really cool,' " said Mike Chernine, president of Land Baron Investments and partner in The Curve. "No one thought they'd stay at a pirate-themed hotel until it's up and running at 90 percent occupancy."

Centra Point, a 30-acre office park with 450,000 square feet of space in 11 buildings, has already seeded development of West Village. In addition to Centra's three-story headquarters, the office park is home to Pulte Homes, G.C. Wallace engineering firm and Stewart Title.

Glen, Smith & Glen, a Las Vegas-based developer, has started design work on a 16-acre project with 1,000 midrise residential units supported by offices and service retail.

Partner Kenneth Smith said he's assembled a team of experts from San Francisco and Toronto to create the urban environment in West Village.

"We literally looked all over North America for experts in that true suburban-urban mixed-use environment," he said. "We had two finalists from Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, because they're so far ahead of us. Most of the architects doing these projects in San Diego are from Vancouver."

Smith said he was looking for an alternative to the "ever far-flung" master-planned communities in Las Vegas when he moved here four years ago from Salt Lake City.

"I was shocked that really, in the middle class, if you're not in a single-family home, you've got really very few choices," he said.

Chernine said high land costs have forced homes onto smaller lots and zero-lot lines where people end up with a 12-foot wall and no views of the surrounding desert valley and mountains.

Harry Reid Research and Technology Park is being developed by the UNLV Research Foundation on 120 acres northwest of Durango and Sunset. It's expected to become a regional employment center that will support research and technology and provide benefits to the community and University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said Tom Williams of the university foundation.

GKT Holdings, a group of land investors, owns 155 acres planned for the second phase of residential and commercial development at West Village, and Sunset Durango Partners has a 10-acre site entitled for midrise residential.

Southern Hills Hospital opened a couple of years ago in that area and St. Rose Dominican Hospital is building the $147 million San Martin campus on Warm Springs Road near Durango. It will employ 385 nurses, 110 clinicians and administrative staff.

Beck said the creation of an "Edge City" depends upon the public seeing the location as one place.

"That is why we came up with West Village and are working hard for people to understand the connectivity of these projects," he said.

 

Smith, Hubble. "Suburbs Headed Southwest?" Las Vegas Review Journal 14 December 2005: 1D+.