Developer starts building new community for sunken North Las Vegas neighborhood
The new Windsor Park is underway.
Construction crews recently broke ground on a North Las Vegas housing tract that is being developed for residents of Windsor Park, a historically Black neighborhood nearby that has grappled for decades with widespread structural damage.
No houses have started taking shape yet. But crews are doing site work for the publicly funded 93-lot subdivision along Carey Avenue just west of Martin Luther King Boulevard.
The city issued a grading permit for the project on Sept. 15, records show.
Project developer Frank Hawkins, executive director of Community Development Programs Center of Nevada, did not respond to requests for comment.
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. The neighborhood is now laced with empty lots, cracked roads and damaged houses.
Homes are ‘falling apart’
State Sen. Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, introduced the bill in 2023 that finances the new development.
Her legislation — called the Windsor Park Environmental Justice Act — allows Windsor Park homeowners to exchange their houses for newly built ones nearby. It also required the state to set up a program to pay the homeowners’ moving costs and to help arrange financing to pay off their existing mortgages.
Last year, the Nevada Housing Division awarded the $37 million contract to develop the new community to Hawkins’ nonprofit affordable-housing firm.
North Las Vegas’ Planning Commission approved his project plans this past June, followed by the City Council’s approval in July.
Windsor Park resident Eli Valdez told the Planning Commission that homes in the neighborhood are “falling apart.”
He likened the situation to playing Jenga: If the tower of blocks leans too far to one side, it can topple over.
“That’s the fear that we constantly live in, at least myself,” he said.
Project funding
Hawkins, a former Raiders player and Las Vegas councilman, founded Community Development in 1997. His firm acquired the site for the new Windsor Park this past April for $9.9 million, property records show.
The purchase included a nearly 1-acre parcel on Carey that was not part of the proposed subdivision, which spans about 18 acres.
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 Hawkins’ contract with the Housing Division.
The remaining $12 million came from the state and, under the contract, had to be committed for expenditure before June 30, 2025, and spent before Sept. 15, 2025. Otherwise, any unspent funds from that pot of money would go back to Nevada’s general fund.
Under the legislation, those unspent funds would revert to the state by Sept. 19.
Teri Williams, spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, which includes the Housing Division, confirmed that the state funds were spent.
Spending totals
Williams said in an email on Sept. 16 that the final draw exhausting the $12 million allocation was in process. She later confirmed that the land was ultimately paid for with the state funds.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal submitted a public records request in late September to the Housing Division for invoices, checks and other documentation showing how the $12 million was spent.
In response, the state provided a title-agency statement on the April land purchase, as well as records showing that Hawkins’ firm wrote at least five checks, totaling more than $100,000, on one day in July to contractors.
The state also provided records showing that Hawkins’ firm drew up invoices to the Housing Division for earned developer fees.
One invoice, dated May 1, was for $900,000, while another, dated June 30, was for about $874,330.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
