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Monday, August 02, 1999
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
PUMPED FOR PAHRUMP
Developers consider the Nye County valley fertile ground
By Hubble Smith
Review-Journal
People laughed at Jerry Wang five years ago when he announced plans to build a $2.2 billion resort community in Pahrump, a rural township about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.
Sure, it's got that rustic, small-town atmosphere. But there's more.
The 364-square-mile Pahrump Valley in the southwest corner of spacious Nye County offers clean air, plenty of fresh water and a temperate desert climate that's about 10 degrees cooler than Las Vegas.
People are friendly, housing is affordable, property taxes are low. There's no traffic and very little crime in the town of about 30,000 population.
The Spring Mountain range to the east and Nopah Mountains to the west provide scenic backgrounds for breathtaking sunrises and sunsets.
Sounds like a great place to live, but what's the attraction for visitors there other than the Pahrump Valley Winery and the infamous Chicken Ranch brothel?
"Vision is 50 percent of your success in real estate development," said Wang, president of Las Vegas-based Forum Group Ltd. "Along with vision, it takes hard work and patience."
Wang sees a town that's growing at about 15 percent annually, the fastest-growing rural town in America. Pahrump's population has doubled in the last four years, tripled since 1990.
He counts 4 million to 5 million visitors a year, many of them coming from Death Valley National Park 60 miles to the west, passing through a town that has only 180 hotel rooms.
By contrast, Laughlin has 11,000 rooms with a population of about 8,000 and Mesquite has 2,500 rooms with 8,500 residents.
Forum Group, a joint venture entity of private investors mostly from Taiwan and Japan, proposes to build Oasis at Shangri-La, a planned residential and commercial development on 285 acres straddling state Route 372.
Oasis would have 261 single-family homes, 480 multifamily residences on 40 acres, 112 acres of commercial parcels, a nine-hole, par-3 golf course with lake features within 25 acres, a 3-acre neighborhood park, and water and wastewater treatment facilities.
Construction on the first phase, an 80-unit condominium complex, should start in October or November, after all revisions and change orders have been completed, Wang said. A $10 million, 200-room hotel and $19 million casino is scheduled to break ground in March.
"If Mr. Wang truly has the connections with the people and financing he says he does -- and I have no doubt he does -- I certainly think it's a viable project," said Ed Bishop, vice chairman of the Pahrump Town Board and liaison to the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission.
Wang said he has the backing of "some very famous companies" from Japan and Taiwan, keeping their names confidential. He also was approved for a $160 million loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development following a 2 1/2-year independent market study of the project.
"There were a lot of specifications set forth (by HUD)," Wang said. "I'm the only one on the West Coast to get this particular program because it's not low-income."
The resort, which will take five to seven years for complete buildout, could create up to 18,000 jobs if everything goes as planned, according to Wang.
"The people in the community who know anything about it are definitely excited," Bishop said. "It would be a tremendous boost to our community, to our economic development, with the jobs, the finances, the economic base."
Sandy Harmon, director of the Economic Development Authority in Tonopah, the county seat for Nye, said Pahrump could probably draw some of the smaller conventions spilling over from Las Vegas if it had more hotel rooms.
The Saddle West hotel-casino has limited convention space and recently expanded to 110 rooms, and the Pahrump Station Days Inn has 46 rooms.
"There's an immense market down there for RV pads and rooms," Harmon said.
Patience is what Wang and his partners learned since undertaking the project almost six years ago.
They had to get federal, state and town approvals, go through Nye County's Regional Planning Control Board that Wang said was formed primarily as a result of his resort proposal, and meet requirements of the Nevada Department of Transportation and county health district.
"Pahrump has faced many of the same problems as Las Vegas with unplanned development in the past," Harmon said. Since hiring Town Manager Michael Cosgrove a couple of years ago and going through a recent election, "that town's getting back on track," he said.
The major holdup for Forum Group came from the Public Utilities Commission, which in July accepted the resort's request for new private utilities, including water storage and waste water facilities.
"The county planners were nothing compared to the PUC," Corey Hogan, assistant to Wang and formerly with the Division of Water Resources, said of the approval process.
Hogan said Forum Group learned from the mistakes of Las Vegas, Mesquite and Laughlin regarding flood prevention.
"A big difference between Forum and Jerry and a lot of developers is they couldn't tell you anything but when is the time to build and when is the time to sell," he said. "They couldn't tell you anything about drainage."
Nevada Bell will provide telephone service, Valley Electric Association will provide power and Quality Utilities will provide water and sewer service.
The Forum Group isn't the only developer to recognize the potential of a resort in Pahrump.
Venture Pacific Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia, acquired 13 acres of land in 1997 for its planned Venture Bay Casino Resort, later expanding to 18 acres. But the company has delayed development of the resort until it can secure the proper financing.
"We're waiting for financing to be completed," said Ronald Downey, chairman and chief executive officer of Venture Pacific. "The time is right when all the pieces are in place. You always want to do something yesterday instead of tomorrow, but you can't jump the gun on something like this if you want to do it right."
The projected cost of Venture Bay is about $40 million, and Downey said he's got several sources for the money, including a private placement that's in the works along with dealings with other financial institutions.
It would have a casino and 168-room hotel, two restaurants, recreational vehicle park, convenience store and gasoline station.
Another developer is working on a 550-acre resort-style firearms training facility called Front Sight about 10 miles east of Pahrump.
The first phase of the project, scheduled to open in October, would include classrooms, an armory and gunsmithing pro shop, live-fire simulator ranges and a gourmet restaurant, among other amenities.
The third phase of the development, to be completed in the fall of 2000, would be a master-planned gated community of 177 luxury home sites on 1 acre each with a commercial and community center.
Also, E.A. Collins is putting in 8,000 single-family and multifamily residential units, along with two golf courses.
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Printable version of this story
Jerry Wang, left, president of Las Vegas-based Forum Group Limited, discusses work on the $2.2 billion Oasis at Shangri-La resort planned in Pahrump with a geotechnical engineer from Converse Consultants Southwest. First-phase construction is expected to begin this fall.
Photo by Steve Andrascik.
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