Thursday, Aug. 4, 2005 | 11:16 a.m.
North Las Vegas, a city without a regional mall despite a population of nearly 180,000 people, has two developers proposing malls within 3.5 miles of one another.
The North Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday took the first step for approving one of the competing projects. The city opted to amend its master plan and allow a 160-acre mixed use development that includes a 1.5 million square-foot retail and entertainment complex with a movie theater, restaurants and office space. The unnamed mall at the southeast corner of North 5th Street and Craig Road is a project of the Mendenhall Family Trust and Nelson Ventures.
In October, the council will consider a similar request for a mixed-used development called Northview that includes a commercial area of 1.7 million square feet. The Binion family project includes a nongaming hotel, movie theater and five anchor stores. It's located at the northwest corner of Centennial Parkway and Losee Road.
The dueling proposals have North Las Vegas officials grinning. Council members regularly recite complaints from residents that there aren't enough places to restaurants and stores in the community that has a Target and Walmart but little else. Residents go to Las Vegas for unincorporated Clark County to shop and dine, city officials said.
"We are absolutely thrilled," North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon said. "We have been looking for regional shopping for a long time. This is probably the top complaint we get from citizens, 'Where is our shopping, where are our restaurants?' It looks like we are getting that."
Montandon said there's no way both regional malls can be built that close to one another, but that's not a decision for the city. Market forces will prevail and whichever project convinces the large department stores to choose their site will come out on top, he said.
The other location will likely have to change its plans and become a "power center" instead and seek out retailers such as a Best Buy rather than department stores that typically go into a mall, city officials said.
"There is no way they can both be identical projects," said Montandon, adding there's nothing wrong with that. "Two people competing is a good thing for the citizens to get the best project."
But John Restrepo, a principal at the research firm Restrepo Consulting Group, said it's possible neither of the regional malls will get built in North Las Vegas, or that only one of them will get built, but it could take a decade or longer.
The two regional mall projects in North Las Vegas face competition from the proposed The Great Mall of Las Vegas in northwest Las Vegas near the southwest corner of U.S. 95 and the Las Vegas Beltway, Restrepo said. Triple Five Nevada Development Corp. estimates the project will be 2 million square feet. Triple Five's parent company developed the Mall of America near Minneapolis.
The Great Mall of Las Vegas property is 8 miles from the Northview site and 6.5 miles from the Craig Road and North 5th Street site.
Restrepo said regional malls, which are defined as having 500,000 to 2 million square feet of retail, draw from a population of 300,000 within a 12-mile radius and up to a 30-minute drive. That means only one of the three malls will get built anytime soon, said Restrepo, who added that last suburban mall built was the Galleria Mall at Sunset in Henderson. That mall opened nearly a decade ago.
"These malls don't get built that frequently," Restrepo said. "It is going to go to the fastest horse. Only one is going to come out ahead."
The key in deciding the winner is having a mall developer, the financing and the land in place, Restrepo said. Triple Five, which marketed its project at the International Council of Shopping Centers convention in May, has indicated its mall has lined up Robinsons-May, Dillards, J.C. Penney, Sears and Regal Cinemas.
George Garcia, the Henderson-based planning consultant representing the North 5th Street project said the competition won't have any impact on the project he's working on, which is ready to go once North Las Vegas approves a zoning change and other entitlements to build. The Detroit-based developer of the project, Celebration Center of America, has financing lined up and is negotiating with tenants who'll be ready to sign on once the city grants approvals, he said.
Garcia said his project could be open in two years at the earliest or start construction in two years at the latest.
The Great Mall of Las Vegas is far enough away from the North Las Vegas site and the developers aren't concerning themselves with the second proposed project in the city, Garcia said. He said there will be plenty of retail opportunities in a fast-growing city like North Las Vegas.
"There will be some overlap but one doesn't trump the other," Garcia said. "Competition is what makes America. The key is to get there and bring a quality project and make it happen."
Restrepo said if The Great Mall of Las Vegas is the first project to go, one of the North Las Vegas sites could still serve as a retail power center. The other would have to find another use such as residential or offices, he said.
The competition from the proposed mall in northwest Las Vegas doesn't have Montandon concerned. He said he also believes the North Las Vegas sites are far enough away from The Great Mall that a regional mall can work in his city.
Montandon said having competing regional mall projects in North Las Vegas wasn't unexpected in one of the fastest growing cities in the country. The same thing happened with the residential developments that took off at once, he said.
Retailers have been slow to come to the community because the city is growing so fast that demographic data that is used to make decisions couldn't get updated quick enough, Montandon said.
"All of a sudden everybody knows we are happening in the retail market," Montandon said. "People can't believe a city of 180,000 is without a place to buy a suit of clothes."
Brian Gordon, a principal with Applied Analysis, said North Las Vegas has historically lacked the density to support a regional mall. The city has had residential areas intermixed with industrial development and the construction of master planned communities has created the volume needed.
Garcia said the city's retail potential has been overlooked by developers and his clients are benefitting from that along with having a large enough site to make the project come together.
The Craig Road project, whose name will be selected as part of a public contest, is also proposed to have two 25,000 square-foot office buildings, a two-story mini-storage building. There will be 600 condos with retail similar to The District at Green Valley Ranch, Garcia said. There will be nine buildings housing condos on three of the four stories, he said.
The plans for the Losee Road project call for 2.8 million square-foot of residential space that includes two 40-story condo towers with 1,000 units. There will be four buildings of condos of four stories each covering 250 units. Other plans call for 712,000 of office and retail use.
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