NLV growth soars to second in nation

Timothy Pratt and Malia Spencer

Thursday, July 10, 2003 | 11:27 a.m.

It doesn't surprise Rosslyne Loper that the newest U.S. Census report ranked North Las Vegas second in the nation in growth or that North Las Vegas edged out Henderson, the former fastest-growing city in the nation.

What Loper, who is leaving Summerlin to move to North Las Vegas, didn't expect was the beauty of her new hometown.

A resident of the Las Vegas Valley since 1950, Roper said North Las Vegas hasn't had the best reputation.

"It is beautiful here," she said as she went through paperwork for the house she is buying in Sun City Aliante. "It is really lovely."

The census rankings released today put Henderson right behind North Las Vegas in growth rate in the large-city category between April 2000 and July 2002, at 17.3 percent and 17.7 percent, respectively. North Las Vegas' population was estimated at 135,902, Henderson's at 206,153.

Las Vegas ranked 32nd in growth between April 2000 and July 2002, growing at a rate of 6 percent in that span. Las Vegas ranks 30th nationally with a population of 508,604, according to the census report.

The other three cities in the top five -- Gilbert, Chandler and Peoria, ranked 1, 4 and 5, respectively -- were all suburbs of Phoenix.

Debbie Thomas sees that continued growth in her job at a Henderson Home Depot, where she helps people get store loans for home improvements.

Henderson ranked first in growth between 1990 and 1999, when it grew 156 percent. North Las Vegas was right behind it that year, at 112 percent.

Thomas' branch of Home Depot on Marks Street and Sunset Road was sixth in the nation last year in home improvement loans among Home Depot stores, a direct reflection, she says, of the census data.

To Gustavo Guiterrez, the growth means more tortillas at his North Las Vegas factory. "Everybody has to eat," he said in Spanish.

Up to 15 percent of the 114,000 tortillas his Tortillas Inc. plant produces an hour are sold in North Las Vegas, where nearly 40 percent of residents are Hispanic, according to the 2000 Census.

"The growth gives us security," Guiterrez said. "The volume of production is justified thanks to the people that continue to arrive," he said.

Thomas and Guiterrez are reaping the benefits of what has been sustained growth in these two cities for years, State Demographer Jeff Hardcastle said.

"This just reinforces that we've had tremendous growth for over 12 years," he said.

"It's easy to see things on a day-to-day basis, but if you see things over 12 years, it's not just the number of people, it's shopping, homes, streets, schools, and police and fire departments."

Ask Kurt Segler, director of utility services for the city of Henderson.

His 208 employees make sure that the 4,000 to 5,000 families who move to Henderson every year have water running through their pipes.

Though he has been able to increase his workforce by between 4 percent and 5 percent each year, those numbers don't come close to matching the numbers reported by the Census Bureau today.

So how does he do it?

"We've gotten smarter and more efficient," he said.

His workers have installed new water meters with a small radio built in to them, for example, on about 24,000 of the city's 70,000 homes.

The radios allow workers to read the meters without getting out of their vans, making their workday run smoother and faster.

In Gilbert, the nation's fastest-growing city -- with nearly a 23 percent population increase in the two-year period -- the key issue isn't so much coming up with a faster way to read meters, but finding a way to pay for all of the services needed by the people moving there, Mark Boynton, the city's employment coordinator, said.

"In terms of employment, we're a bedroom community and our commercial growth hasn't caught up with our residential growth," he said.

And while many of Gilbert's 135,005 residents may move there because of what Boynton called its "small-town feel," fourth-ranked Chandler is drawing people because of its jobs, said Nachie Marquez, communications and public affairs director for the city.

Chandler, with 202,016 residents, grew 14.4 percent from April 2000 to July 2002.

The city features an Intel plant that has created 10,000 jobs, as well as a Motorola plant.

A look at these cities -- as well as North Las Vegas and Henderson -- shows the varied reasons that drive people to settle down in different places, Hardcastle said.

"The overall reason for growth in Southern Nevada is job growth. But if you look at a more detailed level -- a given city -- it gets more complicated," he said.

"Henderson has long had larger-scale, master-planned communities, such as Green Valley ... and this has led to a fast rate of development and growth.

"In North Las Vegas these communities are just now coming on line, and the city has long had smaller-scale, affordable housing."

Loper was drawn to North Las Vegas from Summerlin because it is affordable and she will have all of the amenities of the retirement community, she said.

Others who were planning to buy in the new master-planned community Aliante, which is expected to add 7,500 homes and 20,000 people to North Las Vegas in about six years, say it's a nice alternative to other Las Vegas Valley areas.

The development, to be built on 1,905 acres of mostly bare desert, is a project of North Valley Enterprises LLC, a partnership between developers American Nevada Co. and Del Webb Corp. American Nevada is owned by the Greenspun family, which also owns the Las Vegas Sun.

Krys Salvador and her new husband were looking in Aliante for their first home Wednesday. Apartment dwellers, they said they have narrowed their search to North Las Vegas because it is affordable and the community is new. It suits their future, she said.

"We want a new home for our first house," Salvador said. "We want to grow with the community."

Guiterrez looks forward to the potential of added business. He said he remembers being a teenager and playing in the desert where much of North Las Vegas has now been built up.

"We lost a place to play, but gained a lot of customers," he said.