Pharmacy college backs out of deal

Jeffrey Libby

Monday, Sept. 17, 2001 | 10:47 a.m.

Downtown Henderson has lost an anticipated redevelopment anchor tenant, the Nevada College of Pharmacy, due to planning delays.

Harry Rosenberg, president of the college, said Friday that he is negotiating a lease of 33,000 square feet at the Hughes Airport Center in unincorporated Clark County.

"Sure we were disappointed," Rosenberg said. "We had been negotiating for a year and a half. But it just turned into nothing after all this time."

The college had been planned as the anchor tenant of a 105,000-square-foot office and retail complex across from City Hall, at the corner of Water Street and Basic Road. But developer Phyllis Thompson was unable to finance the $27 million project, and the City Council in July killed its exclusive agreement with her.

Even without Thompson, the redevelopment agency wanted the college. The agency in July offered the college $250,000 in rent money over two years to relocate downtown in temporary modular units.

However, the college, which enrolled its second class earlier this month, must establish a permanent site before it can gain accreditation. The city could not guarantee the college a permanent home soon enough, Rosenberg said.

"It was going to be an excellent use for downtown," Bob Wilson, redevelopment manager, said this morning. "Now we've got to find someone else to take their place. But it's not going to kill downtown."

By 2004 the college expects to enroll 300 students and employ 30 faculty members. Wilson had said the shopping and lunches generated by the college would have helped bring new business to an area that has faded over the past decade.

But with that deal dead, the redevelopment agency is no longer sure it wants to begin building at the south end of Water Street.

Initially, the agency planned to send out new requests for proposals for the site at Water Street and Basic Road after the deal with Thompson ended. But the city has since put off making plans for the 3.2 acres it owns at the downtown corner. Wilson said he will not move forward with plans until Clarion Associates, a Colorado consulting firm, finishes a $180,000 study that should provide a blueprint for downtown redevelopment.

In the meantime the city has dropped Thompson's name of Fountain Plaza for the doomed project, instead referring to the undeveloped parking lot as Courthouse Square.