New apartments coming next to site being rebuilt from huge fire

Clark County commissioners approved a redesigned apartment project next to a rental complex that is being rebuilt after a massive fire.

The commission last month gave the green light to Las Vegas developer Brock Metzka’s plans for a five-story, 255-unit apartment building along Maule Avenue near Buffalo Drive in the southwest valley.

Metzka, owner of Edward Homes, purchased the 5.5-acre site for $7 million this summer, property records show.

Efforts to speak with him about the project were unsuccessful.

All told, his involvement with the site marks the latest chapter for a suburban plot of land with a long history marked by a never-built high-rise complex, years of sitting dormant as a giant hole in the ground, and a new project that was destroyed in a fire a few years ago.

During the mid-2000s real estate bubble, developer Rodney Yanke broke ground on a condo project that called for three 18-story towers on the site. He said it would “surpass anything Las Vegas has seen” and mark the “foundation” for high-rise living in the western United States.

At the time, Southern Nevada was in the throes of a high-rise craze known as the “Manhattanization” of Las Vegas, as developers had drawn up plans for skyscrapers around the valley amid the easy-money-fueled real estate boom.

But the market eventually crashed, the broader economy imploded and countless projects in the valley, including most envisioned skyscrapers, got derailed or never materialized.

‘Everybody got hurt’

Yanke’s project, Spanish View Tower, was no different.

Work crews excavated the site and started building an underground garage. But the work eventually stopped, with a trio of construction firms claiming in court papers in 2007 that they were owed more than $36 million combined, records show.

In the end, the property was a gaping hole in the ground for more than a decade.

Yanke, in a previous interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, cited the crumbling economy for why he never built the towers.

“Everybody got hurt,” he said of the project. “It’s sad, but it happened.”

In late 2017, Clark County commissioners approved plans by Las Vegas developer Tim Deters for an apartment complex with more than 600 units, along with some commercial space, on the 16-acre site.

The new project didn’t start taking shape for years. But when construction was underway, the site became engulfed in flames on June 20, 2023.

Flames seen for miles

No one died from the fire, and no serious injuries were reported. But it produced flames that could be seen for miles and destroyed the partially built project.

Investigators ruled out arson but could not determine how the fire began. All told, the blaze caused an estimated $100 million in damages, according to the Clark County Fire Department’s investigation division.

Construction crews are rebuilding the project.

Attorney Mark Mulhall of law firm Kaempfer Crowell, representing Metzka’s firm Avision Development Partners, told the county in a letter this summer that the first phase of the previously approved apartment complex was completely destroyed in the fire.

He described Avision’s project as the second phase of the overall development.

Last month, Kaempfer Crowell partner Liz Olson explained to the county commission that Avision’s project had some design changes from what was previously approved for the site.

The total number of units was almost the same. But instead of three separate apartment buildings on this section, the new plans called for one five-story apartment building, she said.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.