Panel Sees Commercial Building Rise for NLV
From : Jennifer Robison LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
With its burgeoning population, its land supply and its job formation, the city of North Las Vegas should see significant growth in commercial real estate in the next few years; a panel of experts at an economic-forecasting event said.
Speakers at Thursday’s Economic Outlook of North Las Vegas, an event held by the North Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, said the city’s expansions could outstrip growth in others parts of Southern Nevada.
Jeremy Aguero, a principal in the Las Vegas research firm Applied Analysis, said the percentage of population growth in North Las Vegas “will exceed national, regional and local averages” as the city expands from its current 200,000 residents to more than 500,000 residents by 2020. Even the U.S. Census Bureau has given North Las Vegas a nod for its growth, ranking the town as the nation’s second-fastest-growing large city.
And Money magazine recently ranked North Las Vegas No.13 nationally in job formation, with a 36.6 percent employment growth rate between 2000 and 2005.
The city’s new residents and workers need new shopping centers, Aquero said.
In the second quarter, the city of North Las Vegas accounted for more than half of all completed retail space in the Las Vegas Valley, Aquero said. Developers have 460,000 square feet of additional retail space under construction, and 1.1 million square feet planned.
Much of the city’s future retail space will be clustered around master plans, including Aliante and a pending community by a joint venture of Olympia Group and several home builders. Aquero said he’s also seeing “increased fervor” among some if his company’s clients for retail opportunities in redevelopment areas of downtown Las Vegas, as undeveloped land in outlying parts of the city becomes increasingly expensive.
Ralph Murphy, executive vice president of Marnell Properties, said the same economic indicators that are propelling retail development in North Las Vegas will also advance the city’s industrial and office markets.
The Las Vegas Valley has 90 million square feet of industrial space, North Las Vegas houses about 25 million square feet, or 28 percent, of the area’s total. With continued development, North Las Vegas will soon contain 30 percent of the overall market’s industrial space, which means it will pass the southwest quadrant of the valley of the valley as Southern Nevada’s largest industrial submarket. And with developers converting industrial land in the southwest to residential uses, North Las Vegas is “the last, best hope for the industrial buildings we’ll need to grow our economy,” Murphy said.
Murphy added that North Las Vegas’ supply of industrial land will last up to four more years.
“Beyond that, we’ll be out of land in the entire valley,” he said.
North Las Vegas’ acutest space shortage is in offices. The city contains just 1 percent of the valley’s 32 million square feet of office space, Murphy said.
Developers will look for those opportunities on parcels of 25 acres to 50 acres near freeways, with residential communities nearby. Murphy said accelerating development of the North Fifth Street Corridor, a 7-mile project that would widen the street from its current 50 feet to 150 feet to improve the flow of traffic, would help foster office-market growth.
Both Aquero and Murphy said rising development and land costs will pressure lease rates upward in North Las Vegas in coming years.
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