Redevelopment area in downtown Henderson could triple

Valerie Miller

Wednesday, April 5, 2000 | 11:25 a.m.

The city of Henderson is launching a study of plans that could more than triple the size of its downtown redevelopment area.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to study expanding the redevelopment area to include the proposed site of Nevada State College, two proposed master-planned communities, the economically depressed Pittman area and other parcels around the Black Mountain Industrial Park.

Areas designated as redevelopment sites are eligible for up to $1 of public funds for every $10 of private funds invested in the project. Extra tax revenue from the new developments through 2025 are then plowed back into other projects in the redevelopment area.

City redevelopment officer Brad Percell noted that master-planned communities like Provenance, planned on 2,400 acres across Boulder Highway from the industrial plants, and Palm City east of Provenance qualify "because they are potentially useful land which have been under-utilized because of the environmental problems."

Ground water contamination was found at the Palm City development, while former industrial waste water ponds on the Provenance development still have heavy metals such as lead and arsenic as well as pesticides DDT and BHC.

Titanium Metals Corp.'s active evaporation ponds also are included in land designated for the Provenance site. The developer, LandWell, hopes to use close to $40 million of redevelopment funds to close and move the ponds, Robin Bain of the Basic Environmental Co., said last week.

LandWell and city officials estimate that close to $145 million in tax revenue could be generated by the Provenance development and reinvested back to the city.

The city sees the expansion of the redevelopment area as necessary to make the overall redevelopment effort successful, Bob Wilson, a principal planner in the Henderson Community Development Department, said.

"One of the problems with the existing redevelopment area is that the revenue from the tax increment won't come in fast enough to do everything we want to do," Wilson said. "When they expand (the redevelopment area), the tax increment will come in at a faster rate and it will be used for projects at a faster rate."

The redevelopment plan is limited by law to 30 years, Percell said.

The city sees planned developments such as Provenance and Palm City as projects that can generate tax increment revenue, which in turn could be reinvested in areas such as Pittman and downtown to help revitalize those areas, Wilson said.

While some residents at meetings last week raised concerns about the city's redevelopment plans, Community Development Director Mary Kay Peck told City Council members many people fear the process because they don't understand redevelopment.

"People will ask if redevelopment means the city will take away their homes, and the answer to that is 'no,' " she said. "People will also ask if redevelopment means that their taxes will go up, and the answer to that is 'no,' too. The Redevelopment Agency is not a taxing authority."

Redevelopment is a slow process, Peck explained, but the study would be a "first step."