Beltway high-rise plan OK’d with fewer floors

Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004 | 9:11 a.m.

The Clark County Commission approved a disputed high-rise project for Durango Drive and the Las Vegas Beltway on Wednesday, but not before downsizing the proposed height of the twin towers planned for the site.

Paramount Professional Plaza, a consortium of developers including Randy Black Jr., wanted the twin 300-foot towers as part of a larger, mixed-use "urban village" north of the Rhodes Ranch community in Spring Valley. After concerns surfaced from residents and community activists, representatives for the project scaled the project back to 246 feet.

By county code, buildings above 100 feet need commission approval.

Faced with more objections Wednesday, the County Commission lopped another 30 feet off the project. Chris Kaempfer, a land-use attorney representing the developers, argued that because of the topography of the area, the height of the towers, measured in feet above sea level, actually would be less than that approved for Red Rock Station early this year -- an approval that came after long and contentious debate.

Kaempfer also noted that Durango Station, which Station Casinos already has county approval to build near the intersection of Durango Drive and the beltway, would be 216 feet tall, and again topography would make the planned Paramount towers lower.

"The floor of our building is 30 feet below the grade line of Durango Station," he said.

Those speaking against the towers included faces familiar from the Red Rock Station debate. The primary concern of the opponents is that the project would block views of the mountains to the west.

Chuck Arkell, a founder of Summerlin Citizens for Responsible Growth, a group that sprang up to oppose the Station Casinos' project, warned that Red Rock Station was becoming a precedent for other projects.

He said approvals for mid-rises and high rises threatened the west side of the urban area.

"Than you would have a Boulder Strip kind of feel, and it is starting to be built," Arkell said.

Gabe Lither, an lawyer and member of Clark County's Growth Management Task Force, and Jane Feldman, an activist with the Sierra Club and also a member of the task force, urged the commission to delay making any decision on building heights until the task force issues policy recommendations on the issue.

The commission, as it did last month, rejected the appeal. The commission decided in light of a flood of applications for high-rise buildings to hold off accepting new applications, but moved forward with requests for approval already in the system.

Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald said everyone seems to agree that high rises are appropriate for some areas, at some heights. Boggs McDonald, who has said she has concerns about high rises planned for east of Interstate 15, said the approvals have to be considered "on a case-by-case basis."

Commissioner Myrna Williams, who has the greatest concentration of the new high rises planned for her district, which includes much of the Strip, said she does not fear the tall buildings. She said already completed condominium high-rise projects have improved the quality of life in her district.

"I'm not afraid of the height of buildings," she said. "They have proven to be beneficial where I live, so therefore I don't have a problem with them."

Commissioner Rory Reid and Commission Chairman Chip Maxfield echoed the developer of the projects, who said the high-density condominiums have environmental benefits, particularly in the efficient use of water.

"There's more good news than bad news here," Reid said. "The alternative to them is sprawl. Environmentally speaking, these kinds of projects should be attractive to us. I think there is a tendency to treat this as a crisis, when I'm not sure there is."

Maxfield, though, supported lowering the height of the project.

"We like what's being presented here, we just don't know about the height," he said.

The vote to approve the two towers at 216 feet was 5-1, with Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates voting against the project.