Developer faces deadline to spend millions on new North Las Vegas housing project

Decades after the ground started sinking under Windsor Park, a local developer has set out to build new houses for residents of the North Las Vegas neighborhood.

He also faces an upcoming deadline to spend a chunk of the public money allocated for the project or watch those funds go back to the state.

The Nevada Housing Division last year awarded a $37 million contract to developer Frank Hawkins’ nonprofit affordable-housing firm, Community Development Programs Center of Nevada, to build a new housing tract for Windsor Park’s remaining homeowners. He has since drawn up plans for a 93-lot subdivision near the historically Black neighborhood, which has long grappled with widespread structural damage.

The bulk of the project funding, at $25 million, was allocated from federal COVID relief funds that must be spent by the end of 2026 under the terms of the contract.

But the remaining $12 million was from the state and must be committed for expenditure before June 30 and spent by Sept. 15. Otherwise, any unspent funds from that pot of money must go back to Nevada’s general fund, state records show.

‘It’s a concern’

Christine Hess, chief financial officer of the Housing Division, told lawmakers last month that more than $11 million had been spent on the project, all of which had been drawn from the COVID relief funds.

She indicated the spending total mostly consisted of the developer’s $9.9 million land purchase.

State Sen. Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, who introduced the bill in 2023 that finances the project, recently tried to extend the state-money deadlines and secure more funds with new legislation, but that measure fizzled out.

She told the Las Vegas Review-Journal this month that officials are on a tight deadline and need to figure out how to move quickly and spend the $12 million.

“Clearly, it’s a concern,” Neal said.

Under the terms of its contract with the Housing Division, Hawkins’ firm has the right to secure additional funding from other sources, records show. But Neal said the notion of seeking outside loans is not even a conversation at this point.

Instead, she indicated she may ask Nevada lawmakers for additional funds if the state money goes back.

‘Not my purview’

Hawkins, a former Las Vegas councilman and Raiders player, is pushing ahead with the development but has not started construction yet.

His firm acquired the project site, along Carey Avenue just west of Martin Luther King Boulevard, in April, and the North Las Vegas Planning Commission approved plans for the roughly 18-acre project this month.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on the plans on July 2.

Hawkins, founder and executive director of Community Development, said in an interview that his team has $37 million to build up to 93 homes, “and that’s what we’re going to do.”

He also said that he doesn’t have any concerns about the upcoming spending deadlines.

“Even if I did, there’s nothing I can do about it. … It’s not my purview,” he said.

‘Continue to finish the project’

Windsor Park was built in the 1960s over geological faults, and its homes, roads and utilities started sinking decades ago after groundwater was pumped from an aquifer.

Neal’s bill in 2023, called the Windsor Park Environmental Justice Act, allows Windsor Park homeowners to exchange their houses for newly built ones nearby.

She sponsored a bill in March to revise the previous measure. It sought an additional $26 million from the state for the project, and it sought to extend by two years the deadlines to commit and spend the original $12 million in state funds.

Neal told the Senate Finance Committee last month that the deadlines had to be pushed back “so we can continue to finish the project” and that the additional funding was needed “to finish it in entirety.”

She also told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee last month that there was a lot of “rhetoric” the project wasn’t going to pencil — a real estate term for figuring out whether a project will work financially — as well as “I told you so” comments because of the new funding request.

She then pointed to political roadblocks and said, “We still overcame and found our way here.”

The bill stalled and never made it to Gov. Joe Lombardo’s desk in this year’s legislative session, which adjourned in early June.

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