Developer plans urban village

Jennifer Shubinski

Friday, April 1, 2005 | 9:49 a.m.

Carina Corp. broke ground this week on its first urban village, the Village of Centennial Springs, in northwest Las Vegas and has plans for at least two more throughout the valley.

The 41-acre mixed-use development is planned to feature a combination of residential, retail, restaurant and office development organized around a landscaped boulevard to create a "Main Street" environment.

The $100 million community, at Farm Road and Tule Springs near Durango Drive and U.S. 95, will be the valley's first urban village.

"Las Vegas has never seen anything like this architecture, like Main Street USA," Mark Doppe, Carina president said. "So the shops that go in there will be compatible with that type of look and feel."

Carina is best known for its Lamplight neighborhoods that feature traditional home architecture.

The community will feature a variety of residential products, including some not offered before in Las Vegas.

Carina will introduce a half-dozen live-work homes in the community. Live-work homes are designed as single-family homes with a store or office on the ground floor and the living quarters on top, Doppe said.

"We have been working with the city of Las Vegas on how these things fit into codes, are they residential or commercial," he said.

Plans for the Village of Centennial Springs also include 21 two- and three-story brown- stones (attached town homes) that will be built right up to the street with a garage built in back. The community's retail district also will include eight lofts over the retail stores. An additional 205 single-family houses will be built at the village.

Prices will range from about $300,000 to $425,000 for the houses and about $240,000 to $280,000 for the brownstones, Doppe said. Prices for the live-work houses and the lofts have not been finalized.

The community also will have about 56,000 square feet of office space and an additional 50,000 square feet of retail space.

Doppe envisions a community where people can walk to work, the park and the store.

"I've been in Las Vegas since I was very small and I always wanted to do something that was a throwback to the old days," he said.

Doppe said the concept of "new urbanism" is growing in popularity -- not just because it "looks and feels" neat -- but because it makes sense.

"It's a better way to land plan. I think the city and towns are realizing that all over the place," he said. "This is going to help unclog the streets and spread services out a little nicer."

Doppe has plans for similar communities at the northwest corner of Jones Boulevard and Warm Springs Road and at the northeast corner of St. Rose Parkway and Spencer Street, both in unincorporated Clark County. Doppe said a 2006 start date is expected for those two projects.

He also has plans for an urban village in the Phoenix area, the company's first project in that city.

New urbanism projects are generally those that include a mix of housing, workplaces and stores, are not gated and do not lack sidewalks, connect well with surrounding neighborhoods, have a neighborhood center that can be walked to and have neighborhoods that are not a streetscape of garages, according to the Congress for the New Urbanism, a Chicago-based nonprofit think tank.

Peter Calthorpe, principal of Calthorpe Associates, a California-based urban design, planning and architecture firm, who assisted with the design of the village, said the Village of Centennial Springs, and projects like it around the country, are gaining in popularity because of a variety of issues.

"It is being driven by two things: shifting demographics of the country, from singles to empty nesters to seniors, and families who want to be closer to jobs; and environmental issues over the last 20 years," including air quality and traffic congestion, Calthorpe said.

According to the Congress for the new Urbanism, surveys have found that at least 15 percent to 30 percent of homebuyers in a region want a pedestrian-friendly, compact neighborhood more than they want a large home on a large lot.

Calthorpe said he doesn't expect everybody who lives in the community to also work there, but he said it is a start and leads to a more balanced situation.

Doppe said construction on the commercial and residential portion of the project would begin this summer with construction on the first office building beginning this spring.

The retail portion of the project is expected to open by the end of the year, he said. Completion is scheduled to take about two years.

"There will be a beautiful park in the center of it, where kids can go and play, an ice cream store on Main Street. I think it will be great," Doppe said. "This is kind of a laboratory for us. Ideally it would be bigger, but in Las Vegas it's tough to get a larger piece of land."