North Las Vegas, Agora Realty make way for NLV Village

The city of North Las Vegas on Thursday began demolishing the last building on a 29-acre site to make room for a $35 million mixed-used office and retail development, which city leaders say will be the largest redevelopment project in its history.

The 19-acre redevelopment project, currently called NLV Village, will have 200,000 square feet of retail and 125,000 square feet of medical office space. It’s also projected to create 900 new jobs for the city.

Located east of Interstate 15 along Lake Mead Boulevard, the area sorely needs a makeover, said Jared Luke, director of government affairs and economic development for North Las Vegas.

“It’s been a decadelong desire to redevelop this downtown portion of the city of North Las Vegas,” Luke said. “You could have a thriving city, you can have a lot going on, but if the heart of your city is unhealthy, you’ve got problems.”

NLV Village is expected to be a walkable downtown district with several shopping and dining options.

There will be a plaza with a large screen to host movie nights and watch parties for sports and spaces for local artists and musicians to showcase their work, according to Cary Lefton, CEO of Agora Realty and Management, developer of the project. He said it will also have about 75 “micro-business units” at an estimated 300 square feet each for startups and entrepreneurs.

Lefton expects the project to be completed in two years.

“The city of North Las Vegas is being reimagined into a walkable downtown community where the stakeholders of the community can live, work, play and celebrate all that life has to offer,” Lefton said. “There’s about 45,000 people that work during the day within about a mile and a half of the site, that is a community that really doesn’t have a place to gather.”

This will be a big shift for the downtown area from nine years ago, said North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee. He recalls the downtown area of the city looking “ugly” when he took office in 2013.

“It was vacant. It was ugly down here. It was the ugly, inner city of America is what we noticed at the time,” Lee said.

Councilman Isaac Barron, whose ward includes NLV Village, said the city started purchasing property in the downtown area with the hope of selling it to a developer who could attract companies. He said the city chose Agora Realty because it has an established relationship.

Agora has been working with the city for six years starting with the redevelopment of Fiesta Plaza, a grocery-anchored shopping center, said Lefton.

NLV Village will be the second recent project undertaken by Agora Realty and North Las Vegas. In September, the developer broke ground on a $10 million, 22,000-square-foot medical office building, according to a news release. The medical building is scheduled to open in the summer of 2023 and create 100 jobs.

Thursday’s demolition highlights a recent flurry of development for the city. Last month, city officials gathered for a groundbreaking on a 135-acre medical campus, Helios, near the VA Medical Center.

“If this city was going to win — every ward was going to win. It wasn’t just going to be the new areas on the outskirts of town, and the center of the town deteriorated. It was never our plan. Every resident would get the benefit of our leadership,” Lee said.

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on Twitter.