Site for state college may be history

Jennifer Knight

Monday, March 19, 2001 | 11:22 a.m.

The proposed Nevada State College at Henderson may lose its land, forcing officials to scramble for a new site before state legislators consider the project.

The city of Henderson is considering rejecting a gift of about 260 acres of "clean land" offered by Landwell Inc. because the two parties have been unable to rectify certain sticking points in the negotiations, city officials said today.

The parties have been working to hammer out an agreement to annex 2,400 acres of Landwell property into the city -- 260 of which was promised to the state college.

The deal breaker hinges on two things:

* A remediation plan to clean up 300 acres north of the college site has not yet been approved by the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection.

* A series of land-use issues that include fire and park agreements as well as tax-increment issues have not been settled.

"The clock is ticking, and it ticks out at the end of April when it comes to providing the city with the land," said Vicki Taylor, assistant to the Henderson city manager. "Absent the land-use agreements and absent the lack of approved environmental remediation plan, it's going to be very difficult for Landwell to provide the city with the land in that amount of time."

Timing on the deal is crucial because a pull-out could jeopardize the entire state college project if the city cannot find a replacement before meeting with legislators in April.

"It's unfortunate that they're even thinking about this," Landwell President Dan Stewart said. "An alternate site at this late date would be a crushing blow to the city and to its redevelopment efforts."

The city says that either way the state college will be a go. Officials have two alternates lined up, Taylor said. The first is known as the "spring training site" off of Boulder Highway. The other is in the Mission Hills area.

"There would be absolutely no delay in getting those pieces to the state college," Taylor said.

The city is hoping those alternatives won't be put into place because Henderson has a large investment of time in trying to get the Landwell deal through.

"The city needs this deal because we have an interest in seeing this industrial complex repaired," Mayor James Gibson said. "This is probably the one time in our lives that we will be able to get this done."

The 2,400-acre property is an unincorporated county island within Henderson's borders. The land became contaminated after magnesium and other mineral and chemical deposits were ditched in disposal ponds during World War II.

The benefit of the property being inside Henderson's borders would be that once the housing is built, it would produce tax revenue from both industrial businesses and single-family homes.

Landwell's advantage in offering the land to the state college is that it gives the city the incentive to annex the whole 2,400 acres. To that end, it have invested $600,000 in start-up money, aside from the $30 million in property that was offered.

Henderson officials still question just how clean the property will be.

"The one thing that's safe to say, nobody knows to what standard will the land be cleaned," Gibson said. "We don't know if it will be good enough to build houses on."

But just how much liability contaminated land poses to the city is uncertain.

Attempts to reach Henderson's City Attorney Shauna Hughes were unsuccessful today.

State college founding President Richard Moore says that regardless of the city's deal with Landwell, he will continue to pursue the project.

"I don't know anything about what's going on with the land," Moore said. "It's my job to get a college started, so I'm going to do my best to do that no matter what."

Taylor said the last date for Henderson City Council action would be April 10, when it meets.