Rhodes, county get approval to build school

Thursday, Oct. 7, 2004 | 9:19 a.m.

Rhodes Homes and the Clark County School District received approval from Clark County to build a new school outside Rhodes Ranch, a move that cleared the way for construction of more than 1,300 condominiums and almost 200 homes.

Rhodes Ranch was halted in May because the developer had failed to provide a school site as agreed when work started on the community in 1997. Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald in May asked for a hold on consideration of new applications for homes until the issue was resolved, sparking a series of meetings that included Clark County planners, the Las Vegas Valley Water District and representatives of Rhodes Homes.

Rhodes Homes had a potential site, but the sticking point was that there was no water service. That brought the water district into the discussions.

The new school should open in the fall of 2007 at Ford Avenue and Grand Canyon Drive, just outside the master-planned community in the southwest Las Vegas Valley, officials said.

With the approval, four land-use requests to allow new homes and condominiums in Rhodes Ranch that had been held while the issue was unresolved immediately moved forward and were approved by the county commission.

Rhodes Ranch was once slated to be an age-restricted community where schools would not be needed, but in 1998 the developer changed strategies, opening up the area to families with children. The development in the southwest Las Vegas Valley is now home to about 4,800 homes, and the county estimated that the community was growing by 100 new homes each month.

Rhodes Ranch, slated for 9,000 homes at build-out, is a centerpiece for Rhodes Homes, a company owned by Las Vegas businessman Jim Rhodes. In the development agreement that allowed Rhodes Ranch to be built, the county required the developer to provide a site for a school if the community included children. The school district relinquished three potential school sites within Rhodes Ranch when the community was planned as age-restricted, Boggs McDonald said early this summer when the issue surfaced.

On Wednesday she said, "This is a day that I've looked forward to for many, many weeks, I'm glad all the parties could come to the table and bring closure to this issue.

"We have 500 kids that are living in Rhodes Ranch today and at build-out there will be about 1,000 kids. It's been a long time coming, but happy days are here again."

Rhodes Homes had already deposited $4 million in an account to cover the water district's construction costs, officials said.