Ivanpah airport plan took a long time to get off the ground

Tuesday, Nov. 9, 1999 | 11:18 a.m.

Building a new airport between Jean and Primm would mean lots of new homes, new infrastructure and more people.

Which is exactly what some fear, and some hope, a proposed airport would bring.

Joy Bowles and her husband moved out of Las Vegas and into Sandy Valley two years ago to get away from the city. She likes Sandy Valley the way it is -- a sleepy desert community that has a few hundred people, mostly working at the resorts in Jean and Primm.

"It's going to impact us out here," Bowles said. "Then I worry where we'll end up."

Bowles likes people -- she works as a greeter at the Nevada Welcome Center in Jean. But she also likes her relatively isolated home on 2.5 acres in Sandy Valley.

Bowles fears that a new airport will bring hundreds, maybe thousands, of workers who would settle in nearby Sandy Valley and Goodsprings. The additional people would result in more infrastructure, stores and improved roads, she believes.

One of her Sandy Valley neighbors, Danny L. Rider, predicted that the impact on Jean and Primm would be small because there isn't much housing or room for housing in the area. But more people are likely to move into Sandy Valley, said Rider, who has lived in the desert for 22 years.

Bowles fears that eventually her small community could become an extension of urban Las Vegas.

"That's why we left Las Vegas -- to get away from it," Bowles said.

Bowles co-worker at the Welcome Center disagrees. Frank Cua, who lives in Las Vegas, said he'd like to see a new airport on the dry lake bed outside Jean.

Cua's been working at the Welcome Center for about a decade, and he's seen the metropolitan population double in that time. He doesn't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

"We can't stop progress," he said. Cua, who also is a tour guide who meets groups at McCarran International Airport, sees more passengers coming in at the current airport all the time. A new airport would ease the congestion, he believes.

"It has to be done," Cua said.

Cua has met Raymond Young, an executive with Hamilton Associates, the White Plains, N.Y.-based financing company that hopes to establish a cargo facility at the new airport, if it is approved by Congress.

He said Young is enthusiastic about the new airport and has the ability to convince people that it is the right thing to do.

One argument that particularly convinces Cua: He doesn't see many more places to put another big commercial airport. Mountainous terrain blocks a new airport to the west and east of Las Vegas, while the the U.S. Department of Defense has most of the airspace to the north locked up.

The dry lake bed between Jean and Primm "seems to be the only area they have," Cua said.

A few miles down the road, retail workers at the Outlet Mall in Primm hope that a new airport would augment the ranks of shoppers, now mostly people driving between Las Vegas and towns in Southern California.

"I think it's going to be a great thing, to start to bring some housing out here," said John Danielson, manager at the JahneBarnes Extras men's wear store in the mall.

He recognizes that there would have to be an investment in infrastructure and services for the area, tucked about 40 miles south of Las Vegas. He envisions development eventually stretching from the state line to the urban center.

But with the needed infrastructure and service expansion would come "good paying jobs," Danielson said, "not just casino jobs" that Jean and Primm now offer.

Like many of the mall's workers, Danielson, who lives in Green Valley, commutes to the state line. He sees a time when houses or condominiums might spring up in the desert, cutting the commuting time for many of the workers in Primm.

Those that don't commute from the city mostly live in small trailers next to the casino, he pointed out. "That's not good for them."

But Danielson mostly hopes that a new airport will mean more business for the mall.

"It'll help," he predicted.

"It'll definitely help us here," agreed Gil Paley, co-owner of the Diamond Exchange, a few stores down from JahneBarnes at the Outlet Mall. He also hopes for a new airport, not just for new business but because it would shave minutes or hours from his bi-weekly commute from Los Angeles.

Between flying into busy McCarran and taking the shuttle to Primm, his commute is almost as long as driving from Los Angeles, Paley said.