Industrial site may house neighborhood

Adrienne Packer

Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001 | 11:03 a.m.

Apex Industrial Park Inc. developers want to build a residential neighborhood in an area created specifically to keep potentially hazardous industries away from homes.

Adam Titus, chief operating officer of the park, confirmed Wednesday that increasingly stringent air-quality laws have forced the company to study alternatives to industrial businesses.

"We have a serious problem," Titus said. "The problem is the land was sold to be an industrial park, but there are factors beyond our control that are precluding us from developing as originally designed and envisioned."

An Apex lobbyist has met with at least two Clark County commissioners to discuss the potential residential development.

Apex is a 21,000-acre swath of land 15 miles northeast of Las Vegas that was approved in 1988 after the Pacific Engineering & Production Co. of Nevada (PEPCON) rocket fuel plant in Henderson exploded. The accident killed two people and injured 350.

Clark County purchased the property from the Bureau of Land Management and established Apex Industrial Park Inc. to manage it.

Apex controls 10,000 acres; the remaining acreage was sold to Silver State Republic Disposal, Georgia Pacific Corp., Chemical Lime Co., Ulysses Corp. and Kerr-McGee, which operates an ammonium perchlorate plant.

Titus said if commissioners change Apex's master-development agreement, the neighborhood could be built on the southern end -- the Las Vegas side -- of the 45-square-mile Apex Industrial Park. Mountains would separate homes from Kerr-McGee's plant, Titus said.

"It would be some distance, miles away, and it would be over some extreme topography with huge mountain ranges buffering residences from volatile uses," Titus said.

"A blast study ... showed even in a catastrophic event, even with all the ammonium perchlorate, the blast would not exceed the confines of the Kerr-McGee property (5 square miles)."

Apex's 16 investors have invested $20 million in the industrial park to conduct myriad studies in preparation for industrial development. The studies range from those involving the environment to those investigating the impact on endangered species.

Influential investors include Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Peter and Thomas Thomas of the Thomas and Mack Co., Imperial Palace owner Ralph Engelstad, retired advertising executive Rod Reber and developer Edward Hoffman, who shares an office complex with County Commissioner Erin Kenny's husband, John Kenny.

Additional investors -- or money from existing investors -- will be difficult to find if the county's new Air Quality Management Department strips Apex of its competitive advantage by adopting the same air-pollution rules applied in Las Vegas.

The bleak outlook prompted Apex to hire Mark Fiorentino, a Las Vegas land-use attorney who knows the County Commission well, to meet individually with commissioners to discuss building homes on the land.

Titus declined to reveal details of the neighborhood proposal.

"I'm not willing to tell you about it," Titus said. "It's premature to have any further discussion other than to say Mark Fiorentino is talking to commissioners because we have a serious problem."

Douglas Bell, the county's community resource manager who helped broker the land deal with the BLM, said the existing agreement between the county and Apex clearly states Apex cannot build homes on the land.

"They cannot put homes, not sports arenas or anything that would draw large crowds of people," Bell said. "That's why Apex was developed in the first place, so we don't have another PEPCON exploding near residences."

Bell, however, added that the county was faced with a deadline when the agreement was established, and that there were last-minute discussions about allowing neighborhoods on the southern end of the industrial park. Bell said he believes the mountains would provide ample protection, but studies would have to be conducted before amendments were made to the agreement.

"Real estate is location, location, location, but we would have to look at the public safety question as well," Bell said.

Clark County Commissioners Bruce Woodbury and Dario Herrera confirmed Wednesday that they had talked with Fiorentino about the proposal. Woodbury said he didn't get into specifics other than to express concerns about the purpose of Apex being contradicted.

Herrera said although Fiorentino offered no concrete plans or a time frame, the idea is worth studying.

"Obviously, Apex was intended for industrial purposes, but because of air quality issues we might have to rethink that," Herrera said. "We'd have to do a complete assessment and a comprehensive review before we change anything out there."