Project agreement expected soon

Mathis Winkler

Thursday, Dec. 20, 2001 | 9:03 a.m.

It will still need some tweaking, but city officials and developers of a proposed master-planned community on 1,900 acres at the northern end of town said they are confident they will finalize an agreement on the project by mid-January.

After months of negotiations between the two sides, the document -- a so-called development agreement -- was presented to City Council members for the first time at their meeting on Wednesday.

Council adoption of the agreement, which was originally scheduled for Jan. 2, has been pushed back two weeks to work out some remaining issues. It is now supposed to take place on Jan. 16

Partnering as North Valley Enterprises, American Nevada Corp. and Del Webb Corp. plan to build about 7,500 homes on the land that sits roughly between Centennial Parkway, Grand Teton Drive, Decatur Boulevard and Clayton Street.

American Nevada Corp. is owned by the Greenspun Corp., which also owns the Las Vegas Sun.

John Kilduff, the company's president, said both parties would take the next few weeks to fine-tune the agreement.

"We've got some things that we want to talk to (city officials) about," Kilduff said.

He didn't want to go into any details on the issues that still need to be resolved but said they were "not significant."

Although council members said they are generally excited about the development, Councilwoman Shari Buck said she also still wanted to discuss a few things with the developers. Buck declined to reveal the nature of her concerns as well.

If the agreement is approved, the developers expect to start construction early next year.