Panorama Towers has nearly completed construction on its first tower and made significant progress on the second tower. Photo by Gary Thompson.

Laurence Hallier has seen construction costs increase by at least 50 percent since he began developing the $400 million Panorama Towers nearly three years ago on Industrial Road, which has since been renamed Dean Martin Drive, west of Interstate 15.

Steel prices have doubled and concrete has gone from $80 to $122 a cubic yard, Hallier said.

"That's been our biggest hurdle," he said. "Construction costs have been high, but we were able to manage that because we spent virtually no money on sales and marketing. It was mostly word of mouth."

The first 33-story, 308-unit tower is about 90 percent complete, said Hallier, who has a three-story, 6,300-square-foot residence on the 24th floor. It will undergo fire and life safety testing in May and should open in July, about six months later than originally scheduled.

The twin second tower has been topped off and is scheduled for completion in January.

A ground-breaking party for tower three was slated to be held Friday with celebrity resident Pamela Anderson as hostess.

M.J. Dean Construction is building the first two Panorama towers, which were sold at an average of $450 a square foot. Taylor International, general contractor for the $1.6 billion Palazzo project at The Venetian, is building the third tower, which is priced from $550 to $600 a square foot.

Hallier said buyers are paying top dollar for resale units in the first tower, about $750 a foot.

"Vegas is becoming a much more mature city," he said. "People who are paying $750 a square foot are coming to Vegas because they want a hassle-free lifestyle. They're basically rich Californians and foreigners and people from New York and Chicago who realize they want to be in Vegas but they don't want a big house on a golf course."

High-rise prices have increased 70 percent from first quarter 2004 to $580 a square foot on average, and that's probably a low figure, said Larry Murphy, president of SalesTraq, a local housing research firm.

He expects the average price to go to $800 a foot after the 71 units sold at Metropolis are factored out. Metropolis, the first in a new wave of high-rise luxury towers that opened in December near Desert Inn and Paradise roads, sold for as little as $265 a foot, which Houston developer Randall Davis admitted was too low.

PARKLINE LOFTS: Construction has begun on Parkline Lofts, a three-story, 65-unit loft and penthouse project in downtown Henderson. Massengale Construction is the general contractor and completion is expected in April 2007.

Bill Post, managing director of Parkline Lofts, said the $23.5 million project represents the first dedicated residential project in the redevelopment area of downtown Henderson.

Built almost entirely of steel, concrete and glass, Parkline Lofts will be an architectural centerpiece for downtown Henderson and a great asset, Post said.

Russian Hill Partners, a wealth management company in San Francisco, arranged financing for the project. Post is president of Russian Hill Partners.

NEW OFFICE: AWG, a Las Vegas-based destination management, model and talent and luxury transportation company, has moved into its new 23,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at 4740 S. Valley View Blvd. An additional 5,800-square-foot warehouse is used for construction of custom props and housing of the company's corporate event inventory and equipment. AWG has 136 employees in its three divisions.

APARTMENT SALE: Chris Bentley of the Bentley Group said his firm brokered the sale of the Princess by the Lakes apartments at Durango Drive and Edna Avenue for $44 million, or $123,240 a unit, and the Orchid apartments at 2700 N. Rainbow Blvd. for $35 million, or $125,000 a unit.

Oregon-based Bean Investment Co. bought the Orchid apartments and BF Group bought Princess by the Lakes. Bentley said both complexes are planned for condominium conversions.

BF Group also purchased about four aces at the northeast corner of Durango and Edna.

Apartment prices have escalated from about $80,000 a door a few years ago to the $120,000 to $130,000 range largely because of healthy expansion in the population and employment base in Las Vegas, Bentley said.

Condo conversions, which account for 20 percent of new home sales, have become the new supply of affordable housing, he said.