Friday, Aug. 31, 2001 | 11:12 a.m.
While executives with Pulte Inc. and what formerly was the Del Webb Corp. map a new but leaner nationwide strategy, change in the Las Vegas operation has been limited to some executive shuffling.
The latest move, announced Thursday by the Del Webb Group of Pulte Homes, was the promotion of Chris Haines as general manager of Del Webb's Nevada Operations.
Haines, previously general manager of Del Webb's Anthem Country Club and Coventry Homes, has held several executive positions with the company since joining it in 1992. He replaces Frank Pankratz, who was promoted to regional president over the company's eastern properties. Pankratz, who has headed Del Webb's Nevada operations since 1996, will keep oversight of Nevada in his role and will remain based in Las Vegas.
Haines will take the reins of Del Webb's new Sun City community in North Las Vegas, where construction will begin early next year with the first move-ins expected by summer.
The project is a collaboration with Henderson-based American Nevada Corp. Del Webb and American Nevada were the successful bidders in an auction for a 1,905-acre Bureau of Land Management parcel near Decatur Boulevard and Centennial Parkway. The companies paid $47.2 million for the land, which will straddle the future northern beltway.
Haines said today that Del Webb would develop the adult residential component of the project and that American Nevada, owned by the Greenspun family, which also owns the Las Vegas Sun, would build commercial developments. He said other builders would be invited to develop residential neighborhoods within the project.
Although Pulte and Del Webb executives say they are rethinking the Sun City concept and possibly changing its name, Haines doesn't see that occurring in the Las Vegas market and says the Sun City concept will be used in the new North Las Vegas development.
Already, Sun City Summerlin has about 7,800 homes, Sun City MacDonald Ranch has 2,500 and Sun City Anthem is projected to have 12,000 homes by 2011.
"We've seen large levels of customer satisfaction with the Sun City brand in Las Vegas," Haines said. "There's huge brand equity."
But the consideration to change focus in the Sun City concept is being driven by new ideas of today's Baby Boomers, who don't envision themselves living in a retirement development like their parents. That point was driven home in a speech earlier this year at Preview 2001, when Pankratz unveiled philosophical changes on the horizon for his company.
Haines also said the Pulte-Del Webb marriage would give the company an opportunity to better serve the first-time, second-time and move-up housing markets.
"People won't see a lot of change in the company here," Haines said, "because they're already familiar with our adult, country club and Coventry products. But we'll have all kinds of new synergies" to offer different products to a wider group of buyers.
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