Marketing begins for new Vegas community

Jennifer Shubinski

Thursday, June 24, 2004 | 10:56 a.m.

Focus Property Group opened its "home search cafe" to the public today for its Mountain's Edge planned community at Blue Diamond Road and Buffalo Drive in southwest Las Vegas.

Home buyers most likely will begin moving in as early as the end of this year. At least five home builders have started grading and preparing home sites in the community; many have been forming interest lists and plan to begin sales within the next couple of months. The community will be built in two 1,500-acre phases.

The center is a showroom of sorts, which will be a place where prospective home buyers can learn about the 3,000-acre community and can be directed to one or more of the 22 home builders that will be selling homes in the area.

"It is a way for a person to orient themselves to both the identity of the project and also familiarize themselves with all the different builders in the project," said John Ritter, chief executive of Focus Property Group. "There will be information and brochures of all the builders and what we're striving to achieve in terms of design and lifestyle."

While Focus Property Group has been known within the Southern Nevada development community for years for its land acquisitions, retail, office and apartment developments, it hasn't been known to the public as a large-scale developer of residential communities.

Past developments include the communities Lone Mountain, Lone Mountain West and Nevada Trails, all nearing build out. While all are large in their own right, they are not near the scope or scale of Mountain's Edge, and none of the communities was branded under the Focus Property Group name.

Focus Property Group was thrust into the public spotlight after a succession of successful bids for land at government auctions, each time bringing a new price threshold for land to the valley. Most recently the company successfully bid on 1,900 acres of land in Henderson. Final price: $557 million.

Jeremy Aguero, a principal at research firm Applied Analysis, said while Focus hasn't been a known entity to the general public, it draws on years of experience from its employees, many whom have helped shape the valley into what it is today.

"They've got experience and acumen in development across the board. I'd stack up their experience against anyone," he said. "These guys know what they're doing. They've made some bets, some are playing out and we're waiting to see if (others), particularly the 1,900 acres in Henderson, pay off."

At completion, Mountain's Edge will have up to 12,500 attached and detached houses, more than 500 acres of open space for parks and trails, six schools, 45 acres for offices and another 100 acres set aside for retail purposes. Plans do not call for apartments or a casino.

Ritter said that a gaming component wasn't appropriate for the site, which incorporates a neighborhood preservation area.

"I also don't know if the (county) commissioners or neighbors would have been excited about gaming on this project," he said.

KB Home, the valley's largest builder, has about 732 home lots in Mountain's Edge and is considering purchasing an additional two parcels for homes, said Bonnie Hernandez, the builder's director of marketing.

"We think it will be a unique and great community," she said.

KB Home will have three different communities, with homes from 1,530 square feet to more than 3,800 square feet. Potential prices were not available.

KB Home also is considering building four- or five-plex homes, which would be a first for the builder in the area. KB already sells a tri-plex model under its Tripoly series around town.

Hernandez said KB will start building model homes at the beginning of October and plans to open up for sales at the end of November.

The opening of the community comes at the time when some local analysts have said the area's residential market has hit its peak, pricewise. After months of rapid price appreciation and heated bidding wars for houses, that appears to have subsided.

"It might have hit its peak from a pricewise, may have, but the demand is still there, the demand is definitely still there," said Terry Murphy, president of Strategic Solutions, a government and public affairs firm that works with home builders.

Murphy said because of continued demand for housing, the area's rapid population growth and numerous and growing employment opportunities, Mountain's Edge will be successful.

"This will probably become the cornerstone of the southwest and it will be a benefit to the entire southwest region," she said.

Ritter attributed the "return to sanity" of the local real estate market to an increased supply of new and resale homes.

"I think it is a healthy thing. It is not unhealthy nor is it slowing down, but it is becoming a reasonable market rather than a superheated market."

Ritter said most of the builders selling homes at Mountain's Edge bought land before the frenzy, and thus will be able to build less dense neighborhoods and offer a more affordable product than buyers might find elsewhere in the Las Vegas Valley.

The community will have homes ranging from semi-custom to multifamily.

Juliet Properties will build about 300 multifamily units within the community. The for-sale condominiums will be a different style from the builder's popular "stacked" condos.

"It will be attached, but with attached garages, which will give it more of a town home style," said John Stewart, vice president of development. "We needed and wanted to come up with a different unit type."

The condos will average 1,459 square feet. Prices won't be available until the first units are made available for sale in the second or third quarter of 2005. Models are expected to be ready by the third quarter 2005.

"We are quite excited about the amount of open space" in the community, Stewart said.

A mountain at the community's entrance is being worked into a park, with hiking trails leading to the top. Parks will highlight the area's history, people and geography, Ritter said. The parks will have an exploration component to them, featuring a representation of petroglyphs found in the area and dinosaur footprints. The community also will be linked by a series of trails.