Henderson council OKs land trade to settle suit

Valerie Miller

Wednesday, March 22, 2000 | 11:36 a.m.

The Henderson City Council Tuesday approved an agreement to acquire one of the parcels of land it will likely exchange for the site of the proposed Nevada State College at Henderson.

The city will trade land with the Bivins Co. as part of a settlement of a lawsuit Bivins had filed against the city. Henderson will receive $216,050 in cash and a 13-acre parcel at Lake Mead Drive and Warm Springs Road, and Bivens will get 37.35 acres of city land northeast of Equestrian Drive and Boulder Highway.

Henderson will then include the 13-acre parcel in a deal with LandWell Co. to trade 135 acres of city land for 260 to 280 acres near Boulder Highway and Water Street for the proposed college site, City Property Manager John Rinaldi said.

Bivins plans to use the 37.35 acres for single-family homes and duplexes.

The 13-acre parcel from Bivins is valued at $2.5 million and will likely be the site of apartments built as part of LandWell's Provenance 2,000-acre plus master-planned development, which will be adjacent to the college, Rinaldi said.

The land exchange between Bivins and the city was proposed last December to settle a lawsuit Bivins filed after the city denied the company's proposal to build high-density apartments on the parcel. The city had said the project was too intense for the original Bivins site.

LandWell will probably put in fewer units per acre than Bivins had planned, making the project a less-intense development, Rinaldi said.

Although the council approved the agreement for the land exchange with Bivins with little discussion, Councilman Jack Clark spoke out against the exchange, saying that he didn't feel Bivins should be allowed to build such an intense project on the new site, either.

"I'm against this," Clark said in casting a dissenting vote. "I think you are just trading one problem area for another."

The LandWell transaction, expected to be complete in the next 90 to 120 days, would be dependent on the college actually being built on the site, said Dan Stewart, president of Landwell, the development arm of Black Mountain Industries.

Valerie Miller is a reporter for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2319 or by e-mail at valerie@lasvegassun.com