New site found for college in Henderson

Jennifer Knight

Tuesday, March 20, 2001 | 11:02 a.m.

After a week of intense negotiations to save a dying deal, the city of Henderson rejected a donation of land for the proposed state college and opted for a new home.

The move could end up cutting the start-up cost of the college, officials said.

The new plot of land the city has identified for the college is just about three miles southeast of where the old college would have been on Lake Mead Drive. The new site, an 85-acre parcel, is bordered by U.S. 95 on the west on Car Country Drive.

"I don't necessarily think this will put us much further behind," said Jane Nichols, chancellor of Nevada's higher education system. "With the first site we did not know if we would have development costs for example.

Henderson officials finally said "no" to a proposal from Landwell, Inc. to include 2,400 acres of unincorporated land into its city borders.

With the annexation deal, the state college would have received 260 acres of "clean land," but the caveat was that the city was also being asked to accept 300 acres of contaminated land that has not yet had received approval for a remediation plan.

"The deal didn't go south because of anything environmental," said Dan Stewart, president of Landwell. "It was because of its complex process that we were unable to finalize the development issues. We just thought we could do it on a fast-track but unfortunately that didn't occur."

Stewart said that Landwell will now shift gears and go back to the old master plan for building Provenence, which includes a mixed-use of single family homes and light industrial.

They also will stand behind the state college project and continue to pay out $400,000 to fund the architectural contest.

The contest invited architects from all over the country to submit drawings for the first state college building. Each finalist selected will receive a prize of $100,000.

Submissions, which will be concluded by March 30, will be based on the old Landwell site. Whether the drawings can be converted to fit the new site remains a unclear, Nichols said.

The new site has to go through the approval of the city council sometime in early April before being passed on to the Board of Regents on April 19 for approval.

The property has significant advantage over the Landwell land. The city may donate the use of an unused vitamin warehouse that sits on the land. That would allow for a cheaper and faster upstart of the college if it is approved by the Legislature this session.

"Actually, it almost expedites the action in my view," said Richard Moore, state college founding president. "This is an offer that has no conditions."

Moore said that the warehouse is already equipped with sewer, lights and all the basics to build the facility out to fit 10-12 classrooms.

Even though the property is situated on an 85-acre plot of land, the city has already filed a petition with the Bureau of Land Management, who owns adjoining land to expand that acreage.

Assemblyman Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, made the comparison with UNLV saying that the college will make the same meager start and build up into a good teaching college that will educate teachers and nurses for Nevada.

Having a site in hand also helps the case for the state college when they go before the Legislature, Perkins said.

The issue of the state being able to afford the college in lieu of expected budget cuts from revenue shortfalls still remains to be seen.

"I don't think we can afford not to do this," Perkins said. "If these thousand students go to one of our universities, then it will cost the state more money because it costs about 25 percent more to fund university students than it will for state college students."