New 1,500-acre development is in the works

Thursday, May 1, 2003 | 9:39 a.m.

North Las Vegas officials are eyeing 1,500 acres for what would be a new master-planned community.

City officials said Wednesday they anticipate they will nominate the federal Bureau of Land Management property for auction in November 2004. The residential project would be next door to Aliante, the 1,900-acre community under development by American Nevada Corp. and Del Webb Corp. American Nevada is owned by the Greenspun Corp., which also owns the Las Vegas Sun.

Jacqueline Risner, North Las Vegas development director, said the city has let the home-building companies know of the plans to ask the BLM to free up the land for development.

Officials with American Nevada and Del Webb were not immediately available for comment.

She said it is important to coordinate any development of the new property with the adjacent Aliante. Risner also said the process of opening the land for auction and development is in the early stages.

Among the tasks still to come is defining the outlines of the property, she said, which should be completed next fall.

"There's a lot of work to do," Risner said.

Aliante eventually will be home to 7,500 residences on 1,900 acres. The BLM auctioned the land for the project for $47 million in May 2001. The auction was one of the largest sales of contiguous parcels through the BLM land-disposal process.

The BLM, which holds regular sales of federal land in Clark County, also has work to do before the new sale.

Mark Morse, BLM Las Vegas Field Office manager, said his agency has to prepare an environmental impact statement before the new North Las Vegas land can be sold.

An existing environmental study covers the 27,000 acres authorized for public auction under the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, but the land authorized in that law is running out.

Morse said a new study has to be done to cover 22,000 acres authorized for auction under the companion 2002 act. He said a major part of the new study will be a review of air-quality issues in the Las Vegas Valley.

The $500,000 review is already under way, he said.

North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon said the BLM and city's work appears "to be clicking along fairly smoothly," but warned that the timeline "is fairly tight."