Landlord can’t cash in - for now

By Mike Trask (contact)

Thursday, July 5, 2007 | 7:28 a.m.

The Henderson apartments Hardy Segler owns would never be called upscale.

Each of the units measures 600 square feet and goes for $550 per month, water and sewer included. One tenant parks his scooter outside on the dirt yard. Another keeps her door dead-bolted behind a torn screen. Cigarette butts litter the walkway.

But 53-year-old Segler always thought his four one-bedroom apartments - one of them his home - would be worth a tidy sum once the neighborhood was redeveloped and revitalized.

Last year Segler thought that day was rapidly approaching when he heard that real estate developer Kolby Pulsipher had big plans for the Bruce Way neighborhood.

Today it's one of the toughest sections of the otherwise prosperous city. When Henderson Police Chief Richard Perkins took over the position last year, his first initiative was to assign more officers to the area.

But Pulsipher had a vision: a four-story condo project on Bruce Way. By Las Vegas standards, that may not sound like much. But for Bruce Way, it was huge beyond its size.

Segler loved the idea, figuring a nice condo project next door would make his property worth a small fortune. Finally, after scratching it out as an electrician and then, after a serious shoulder injury, on disability, he might get a nice chunk of change for the property that he inherited in 2005. The property had been in his family's hands since the mid-1980s.

He started fixing the roof and put in new windows, sprucing up the place. He also told anyone who would listen that his property might even be historic, noting that the twin duplexes used to sit behind the El Rancho Hotel. Segler acknowledges there is no proof that Bugsy Siegel or anyone else famous ever slept in one of his units, but then again, there isn't proof they didn't, either.

Then the hammer fell. Pulsipher isn't building.

That's because the city Redevelopment Agency - the five council members - paid Pulsipher $85,783 not to build. The cost was based on the amount he invested in plans for the property, mostly architectural designs.

Pulsipher already owned the land when the city began the 4,500-acre Eastside Redevelopment Area. And though he still owns it, the city's payment will keep it vacant, at least for now, so as not to conflict with plans for the redevelopment area, near Pulsipher's property.

At first glance the decision to dissuade someone willing to build anything in the Bruce Way community seems strange, given that the city has not been inundated with offers.

But Henderson has bigger plans for the area. It knows one small condo building won't change anything. But a whole new block could plant the seed.

So the city hired Pulsipher to act as the city's real estate broker.

"It helps," said Michelle Romero, redevelopment project manager. "We have found if it's the (redevelopment) agency sometimes, not always, property owners just see dollar signs."

In other words, using a broker helps keep property values low.

Segler for one isn't thrilled with the city's decision.

"That's some low-down sneaky business," he said.

The city already has purchased 11 properties near Segler's home. It has a $5 million budget to assemble a large tract and demolish existing homes to clear the way for a workforce housing project to attract teachers and other public servants who otherwise could not afford to buy a home in Henderson.

Few would dispute that is an admirable goal, one that beyond the benefits it offers future residents could help transform the Bruce Way neighborhood into more than a dusty shadow of the rest of Henderson.

But Segler has another point. If his property no longer looks like the potential big pay day it did when Pulsipher was thinking of building his project, Segler thinks he is at least entitled to the $30,000 he spent fixing up his apartments. That's the deal Pulsipher got.

And if the agency wants Segler's land, he says , it will have to pay. His asking price for the .17-acre lot is about $650,000, five times its $126,663 appraised value.

The city, though, won't pay that much and it never uses eminent domain.

So where does that leave Segler?

For now, sleeping in a room where Bugsy Siegel may have slept.