Cleanup continues to delay master-planned community

Jennifer Shubinski

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2004 | 11:08 a.m.

Construction on a planned 2,200-acre community by the LandWell Co. and homebuilder Centex Homes is still several years away as LandWell continues cleaning up a polluted portion of the site.

LandWell and Dallas-based Centex Homes announced this week their plans to develop the site into a master-planned community with parks, trails, housing and a business district.

The development agreement includes the sale and transfer of the land from LandWell to Dallas-based Centex Homes. A purchase agreement has been signed, but the transfer of land has not officially closed escrow, and the financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

"It's important in this valley to concentrate on infill development which this is," Mark Paris, chief executive and president of LandWell said.

Paris said it is too early to know how many homes will be in the community, what the densities will be and what price ranges the homes will be sold for.

Plans for a master-planned community on the land east of Boulder Highway, north of Lake Mead Drive and south of the Las Vegas Wash have long been in the works, but have stalled over time because of environmental testing of the soil and water.

Of the 2,200 acres, 1,700 acres are in the county and the remainder is in the city of Henderson. Paris said the company will apply to have the county land annexed by the city. Brad Burns, president of the Las Vegas division of Centex Homes, could not be reached for comment.

Bristol Ellington, Henderson's assistant director of community development, said he doesn't foresee any difficulties in getting the land annexed. The land is one of two county parcels that are surrounded by land within the city of Henderson jurisdiction.

The other parcel is land that Titanium Metals Corp. (Timet) owns and sits on, Ellington said.

LandWell, known for its development projects in Southern Nevada including Black Mountain Industrial Center, the Valley Auto Mall and the Traverse Pointe mixed-use development, and Timet are both affiliates of Basic Management Inc. (BMI), a privately owned holding company.

BMI was incorporated in 1952 to manage the common assets of the industrial plants located within the BMI complex, the site of a magnesium facility that played a vital role in World War II in the production of, among other things, incendiary bombs.

LandWell purchased the 2,200 acres in 1992 from BMI and has invested more than $50 million toward restoration of the property, including conducting comprehensive testing and research related to the soil and water conditions on the site. About 400 acres on the 2,200 acres are the subject of the restoration work.

The contaminants are the legacy of 45 years of chemical manufacturing that began in 1941. A succession of private manufacturers, including BMI, dumped pesticides, arsenic, lead and other hazardous chemical by-products until 1976 when Congress passed laws governing waste disposal. Today about 100 acres of release ponds remain active, used by Timet.

Those ponds will be replaced by a water treatment plant on Timet's property, Paris said.

Paris said the company submitted a detailed plan to the state on how the land will be cleaned up.

"We've completed our research and have a plan to remediate the property and have submitted a plan to the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection," he said.

The state received nine large binders of information Monday, said Cindy Petterson, division spokeswoman.

She said it will take the department until at least the middle of next spring to review the information. Nine people will sift through the data and reports, she said.

"The data should tell us the vertical extent of the contamination, and if that contamination is in the ground water," she said.

Only after the plan has been reviewed and approved, can LandWell, through its Basic Remediation Co., begin its cleanup of the land. Once the land has been remediated and determined suitable by the state and Environmental Protection Agency standards, Centex can begin building homes.

"I don't have a timeline because we don't even know if we have everything we need" in the packets, Petterson said.

Paris was more optimistic. He said the company has worked for years to clean up the site and expects to have the process completed in the next two to three years.