Developers show interest in downtown Henderson

Jeffrey Libby

Monday, Dec. 23, 2002 | 11:04 a.m.

Three developers with proven track records and ready money want to invest millions of dollars to transform the skyline of downtown Henderson. Civic Partners of Newport Beach, Calif., Las Vegas-based Plise Development and Construction, and Las Vegas Valley developer and entrepreneur Jerry Polis answered a national call by the Henderson Redevelopment Agency for development proposals on three city-owned downtown sites. The call closed last week.

The developers are vying for rights to build multi-story complexes that would combine commercial and residential uses for the first time along downtown Water Street, a mile-long island of aging, one-story storefronts that was all but passed by during the building boom of the last 20 years.

Plise is proposing a four-story complex of retail and office space and a 460-space parking garage at a 3.6-acre site at Water Street and Basic Road, Bill Snyder, an architect and partner in Eagle Management and Investments, the development arm of Plise, said.

Civic Partners has submitted conceptual plans for three sites the redevelopment agency has cleared, including the one at Water and Basic, Julie Drake, a development manager for the company, said. The company would be willing to develop some or all of them.

Representatives of Polis could not be reached for comment on their plans.

The redevelopment agency, which has yet to review proposals, plans to take 90 days assessing them. The projects, if built, would be the first to share sky with the municipal court, City Hall and the Eldorado casino -- three buildings that have towered above a downtown of World War II-era, flat-roofed homes and businesses for more than 10 years.

"I'm glad to know we've attracted people with experience," Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said. "The hope has been that we have success there. I'd be more than happy to see success downtown."

Since 1995, when the city established the downtown redevelopment area covering its original townsite of 1,000 redwood-paneled homes, the redevelopment agency has experienced mostly struggle and frustration.

At the 3.6-acre site across from City Hall, for instance, the agency for 2 1/2 years held out an offer of land, utility upgrades and tax incentives worth more than $4 million while Henderson developer Phyllis Thompson tried, but ultimately failed, to secure financing for a multimillion-dollar commercial complex.

But now, just 18 months later, after city officials blamed the dumped deal on a market that wouldn't support the huge investment in a struggling downtown, competing developers are saying downtown is ripe for redevelopment.

"We're the second-largest city in the state and one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation," said Snyder, who through his architectural firm also designed a complex for the corner while working for Thompson.

"City Hall and the courts are right there. It only makes sense to have a first-class office building and that redevelopment takes off."

The most telling difference between plans appears to be money behind them.

"The lenders are on board," said Craig Johnson, a partner of Eagle Management and Investment.

Plise has developed more than 1.5 million square feet of commercial office, medical and industrial space in the past 15 years, according to a company history. The 133-acre, $130 million Sage Mountain regional distribution center in southwest Henderson is one of Plise's several ongoing projects in the valley.

Plise has yet to venture into redevelopment.

Civic Partners, on the other hand, has specialized in downtown revitalization projects since the early 1970s, Drake said.

"Banks don't always understand the redevelopment process, but we have groups we've worked with for years who have financed multimillion-dollar projects for us. They understand and support what we do," Drake said.

Civic Partners is currently working on a 14-acre downtown redevelopment project in Boise, Idaho, a city with similar population and growth rates as Henderson. The project includes high-density residential lofts above commercial retail and office space, a mixture the Henderson Redevelopment Agency has said it wants along Water Street.

Civic Partners is building similar downtown redevelopment projects in Denver, Sioux City, Iowa, and Vista, Calif., among other locales. Polis, the third developer, has built commercial complexes in the valley for more than 20 years. He also runs a company that is doing groundbreaking work on plasma technologies, and is an art philanthropist.