Friday, Sept. 17, 2004 | 4:02 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
September 18 - 19, 2004
Alpine ridges, brillant forests, bubbling brooks, calmness, dancing daffodils, dew drops, frosty mornings.
Irish Springs, French Springs, Spanish Springs.
Escada, Ferragamo, Ferrari.
All this and more await homeowners in Las Vegas.
Not in their backyards, but on their utility bills and correspondence.
They're street names picked by developers.
"We want to communicate to our buyers just from that name," said Julie Mercer, a director of strategic marketing for Pulte Homes Corp., who has worked on projects to create names similar to the ones above.
Though such words may seem incongruous with Southern Nevada's desert landscape and some people's frenetic lifestyles here, they're already on signposts across the Las Vegas Valley.
And as Clark County's population continues to grow, hundreds more names touching on similar themes are being added to the maps every month, said Meggan Holzer, a building plans technician for Clark County who approves street names.
Perhaps a lot like kudzu spreading across a foreign landscape covering up native species, street names that evoke beach scenes, Italian vistas, Spanish cities, California golf courses and New York City neighborhoods are popping up on street corners in master-planned communities and housing developments throughout the Las Vegas Valley.
It wasn't always this way.
Some of the oldest streets in Las Vegas tell the story of Southern Nevada's founding. Fremont Street honors John Charles Fremont, who explored the West in the early 19th century. Several streets are named for the hotels flanking them.
But marketing efforts spearheaded by housing developers and public safety laws enforced by city and county officials have changed the way streets are named in Clark County in recent years.
Housing developers, several marketers said, choose street names in line with what they think consumers would want. Often they choose a theme for the entire community and then come up with street names that fit that image.
"We look at the product we're offering, and the consumer we're targeting," Mercer said, explaining her company's strategy.
Expensive homes will be clustered in communities with expensive sounding names, said Mercer. Often, these names happen to be foreign. Think: Edinburgh and Paradiso.
"When you hear Paradiso, in the mind of the consumer it creates a kind of Taj Mahal feel, and that's what it is in terms of our collection," Mercer said.
Within many of these communities, street names evoke long forgotten dreams and personal aspirations. French and Italian names are among some of the most popular in the valley.
Street names in new housing developments and condominium projects with smaller price tags tend to strike a different tone. Some are more "urban" or "hip," because developers are going after younger buyers who are savvy but have less money to spend.
Names like Fulton Park and Easton Place that have a British-sounding edge to them may be appropriate for a condominium project going for an urban feel, Mercer said.
These buyers are "convinced of their upward mobility, but they're not in the place where Paradiso buyers are," Mercer said.
At the Silvestone Ranch Community, which is organized around a golf course, some of the streets are named for famous golf courses. Consider Oakmount, Cypress, Augusta, Pinehurst, Windemere and Parkfield.
"It's honing in on the golf course (home) buyer," Mercer said. "We certainly believe golfers are our main buyers there."
None of this is new to Melanie Dobosh, who works for Las Vegas Fire & Rescue but who has final say on all street names in the Las Vegas Valley, except for Henderson. That arrangement avoids having two streets with the same name with a Las Vegas address.
"They're not going to name something in Southern Highlands 'Pooh Corner,' " Dobosh said.
But beyond their usefulness as a marketing tool, street names also have a public safety function. In the event of an emergency, firefighters and police officers must be able to find an address quickly.
"There is a method to the madness," Dobosh said, explaining the rules governing her decision-making.
Street names cannot repeat, even if the suffixes are different. That means no Las Vegas Street, because there's already a Las Vegas Boulevard.
No number can appear in the street name, no matter what language it's in. Dos Passos Street, for instance, would not be acceptable. If a Spanish-speaker called 911 with an emergency, the dispatcher may not know if he meant "2 Passos Street" or some number on "Dos Passos Street."
Also, no directions can be part of the street name, so no "North Pole Street."
Phrases will be nixed. "Once Upon a Time" and "Stars and Stripes" can never be streets here, Dobosh said.
And they must be universally easy to spell and pronounce. That's why so few new streets are named after people; there are just too many possible ways to spell names.
The word "merlot" would be considered hard to spell because the "t" is silent.
And because at least 50 percent of emergency calls are placed from cell phones these days, clarity is extremely important, Dobosh said. Only calls made from land lines automatically display the address of the call's source.
Street names in the valley that do not conform to these rules likely were chosen before the rules were in place.
Dobosh and Holzer said they approve hundreds of names every month, prompting them to wonder how developers would continue to find new ones.
As long as new homes are going up, though, they'll have to.
"We think these things out pretty carefully," Mercer said. "Names say something to you."
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