Influential real estate broker Keith Bassett dies at 75

If you’ve ever bought pet food, office supplies or TVs in Las Vegas, Keith Bassett has probably touched your life.

As a commercial real estate broker, Bassett negotiated deals in the 1980s and ’90s to bring to Southern Nevada some of the nation’s biggest retailers — PetSmart, Office Depot, Best Buy, Old Navy, Sports Authority and Target, among others.

Bassett, whom colleagues say also helped bring professionalism to the brokerage industry during Las Vegas’ boom years, died Saturday at his Las Vegas home. He was 75.

“Keith Bassett was my friend and colleague. He was a hardworking man who created the backbone of Las Vegas’ real estate industry,” said Las Vegas developer Irwin Molasky. “He brought office tenants and retailers into this community and managed their expectations – and mine — for 40 years.”

Bassett, a South Dakota native, got his start in real estate in Minnesota in the 1960s, where he developed Rochester’s first regional mall. In the mid-1970s, Molasky, who developed The Boulevard Mall and Sunrise Hospital and gave 45 acres of land to launch UNLV, lured Bassett to Las Vegas to lease up the Bank of America Plaza Molasky was building downtown.

Through Realty Holdings Group, which he opened in 1975, Bassett leased and managed Molasky’s developments. Beyond Bank of America Plaza, properties Bassett oversaw for Molasky included Best on the Boulevard shopping center on Maryland Parkway, the Best in the West shopping center on North Rainbow Boulevard, and downtown’s Molasky Corporate Center.

But Bassett was just as influential for the commercial real estate industry he helped shape, colleagues said.

“Anyone who has been in commercial real estate here for a long time worked for Realty Holdings Group. That’s where they got their education,” said Rob Moore, senior managing director for the Las Vegas office of Faris Lee Investments and an associate of Bassett’s since the mid-1970s. “For a lot of them, it contributed to their moral compass. We’re sorely missing a guy who truly felt that integrity and character were more than a concept, and honesty was definitely more than an option.”

Bassett sold Realty Holdings Group to Burnham Real Estate in 2004, and stayed on with Burnham. He also stayed on as a senior director after Commerce Real Estate Solutions, a Cushman & Wakefield Alliance member, bought Burnham in 2007. Bassett retired less than six months ago, after he developed vision problems due to a chronic illness.

“An awful lot of people who have had really good and successful careers got their start in Realty Holdings under Keith’s teachings and tutelage,” said Mike Dunn, Las Vegas market leader for Cushman & Wakefield|Commerce Real Estate Solutions. “Keith has huge handprints everywhere when it comes to mentoring or working with people. I couldn’t even put a number on the people he’s affected.”

Matt Bear, a vice president at CBRE Las Vegas, recalled Bassett as “one of the first guys to try to organize a good (brokerage) company here.”

“He brought a sense of professionalism. How he worked with me was probably how he worked with everybody: With kindness, and as an honest negotiator you looked forward to working with,” Bear said.

Added Molasky: “Tenants trusted him – as they should — because he was honorable, honest and trustworthy. He was a professional to the highest degree whose legacy is that many top people in today’s real estate industry cut their teeth with Keith at Realty Holdings Group. I am grateful for his friendship, his ability to get things accomplished and his many contributions to making Las Vegas a better place to work and live.”

Even if Bassett took his profession seriously, he found time to have fun. He was legendary for his practical jokes, one of which involved emptying out the office of his vacationing chief financial officer, Moore said.

Bassett was also active in the Southern Nevada community. He was a past chairman of the UNLV President’s Associates Foundation and a board member of Boy Scouts of America and Boys and Girls Clubs. He was also Nevada state director of the International Council of Shopping Centers, which holds an influential retail trade show in Las Vegas every spring, and past president of the Las Vegas Rotary Club.

Bassett is survived by his wife, Dianna; his ex-wife and the mother of his children, Bernadine; three daughters and one son; eight grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Services are scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. at Christ the King Catholic Church, 4925 S. Torrey Pines Drive. The family asks that donations be made in Bassett’s memory to the Holy Spirit Catholic Church Building Fund or to Nathan Adelson Hospice.

Contact Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com. Find her on Twitter: @J_Robison1.