Boom-era Summerlin project will be torn down, started anew

Erik Pfahler is about to exorcise a recession-era specter.

Come October, Pfahler and his California investment firm, Newport Pacific Land Co., will cast out what he called four "gray ghosts" that haunt the southwest corner of Flamingo Road and Town Center Drive in Summerlin South.

In its first foray into Las Vegas, Newport Pacific will purge the pre-bust, Mediterranean-style community of four-story condominium buildings, and usher in upscale duplexes in a Palm Springs-flavored, desert contemporary aesthetic.

"That product was being built in a different era," said Pfahler, a principal in Newport Pacific.

The demolition will mark the first time a boom-period project in Summerlin is torn down and restarted from scratch.

And Latitude, the 55-plus neighborhood that takes over, will test the market on both product type, local observers said.

"Bringing new, innovative product types to the market that aren't cookie-cutter is a good thing," said Dennis Smith, president of local analysis firm Home Builders Research. "It's also a good sign for the housing market that new builders are starting to invest here again. But there's going to be a lot of competition."

Before Latitude, there was Montechiaro, a more urban Westmark Homes community planned for about 600 units in several three- and four-story buildings with as many as 16 homes per structure. Westmark announced the age-restricted project in 2008 and set starting prices on the homes, which ranged from 1,550 to 2,700 square feet square feet, from the high $300,000s to the $800,000s. But like countless other local, midrise condo projects launched early in the downturn, Montechiaro never welcomed its first residents.

Newport Pacific's funding partner, IHP Capital Partners of Newport Beach, Calif., bought the 52-acre parcel in February for $22.5 million, according to records from the Clark County Assessor.

The investors plan a more intimate community of 358 attached, one- and two-story homes, two to a building. Some of the homes will sit side by side, lining a greenbelt so that residents can sit outside and socialize. Vertical duplex homes will have two stacked, single-story homes, with a private entry lobby and elevator for the second-floor unit. All units will have attached garages and a sleek, glass-heavy desert contemporary style emphasizing natural light and indoor-outdoor living. Homes on the greenbelt will offer guest casitas with private entrances.

Pfahler said Newport Pacific held four focus groups of local residential brokers for design feedback.

Homes will range from 1,850 to 3,000 square feet, with prices projected to start in the mid-$300,000s.

That comes out to $190 a square foot, which would make it competitive with the high end of the local production-home market.

Latitude's Club 45, a 14,000-square-foot "gathering spot," will have a fitness center, an indoor lap pool, a sauna, a yoga pavilion, an events lawn and a living room for "coffee and conversation." The community will also have fountains, fire pits, cabanas, canopy trees and desert gardens.

But Latitude's best attribute may well be its location, Pfahler said. It's one of the last, great "aspirational" sites left in Las Vegas, adjacent to both The Ridges, where homes sell for as much as $12 million, and Summit, where undeveloped lots are listed in the millions. The neighborhood is also minutes from Downtown Summerlin. Its hillside setting will mean mountain and city views.

"If you're going to spend more than $500,000 on a house, you need to have shopping and services to go with it," he said. "In building and studying active-adult housing for 15-plus years, I have a checklist of characteristics that make for great communities. This site checks all of those boxes."

Latitude may not check the boxes for all 55-plus buyers, though, and it will have plenty of competition, from Toll Brothers' Regency community in Summerlin's The Cliffs to Lennar's more affordable, single-family Heritage in Henderson's Cadence.

"Builders are like sheep — they follow one another," Smith said. "Baby boomers and the soon-to-retire are the hottest demographic out there, and that's not a big secret."

But buyers who kick the tires on the $250,000 homes at Heritage won't be the same segment interested in Latitude, which will have a "hipper, cooler vibe" than other active-adult communities, Pfahler said. There's room for multiple concepts, and if anything, the market is underbuilding, he said.

The numbers may bear that out. Builders have roughly 1,000 age-restricted new homes planned or under construction valleywide in the next few years. That's well below the 20,000 active-adult homes built locally in the 1990s and early 2000s — among them, Sun City Summerlin's 8,000 homes and Summerlin's 1,900-home Siena community.

Peggy Chandler, senior vice president of Summerlin developer The Howard Hughes Corp., said both Latitude and Regency will appeal to the "youthful mindset" among active adults.

"There is a new emphasis on luxury and activity beyond bridge and bocce ball," Chandler said. "Rather, the focus for today's active and enlightened aging population is on cycling, hiking, pilates, wine tasting and learning."

The market segment in general shows strength: The number of Americans at or near retirement age is surging. Baby boomers number more than 74 million. Another 28 million Americans are ages 67 to 82, according to the U.S. Census. The number of 65-year-olds will spike 36 percent by 2020 alone. Those figures are partly why the National Association of Home Builders' 55+ Housing Market Index has nearly quadrupled since 2008.

Newport Pacific will unveil more details on Latitude from its booth at the Summerlin Festival of Arts, at Downtown Summerlin, on Oct. 10 and 11.

Contact Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com. Find @_JRobison on Twitter.