Local Southern Nevada governments report on development efforts

Representatives from Clark County, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder and Mesquite gave an economic development status update at the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance’s third annual State of Economic Development event on Wednesday. Here’s where they stand:

Clark County

Philip Klevorick, the Clark County economic development liaison, said the county is seeing “tremendous growth in small businesses,” with business licenses up 40 percent in 2016 over 2015. A significant amount of new business is coming out of California, he said.

Las Vegas

Patrick Sinnott with the Las Vegas economic and urban development department said the city is seeing strong growth in downtown.

“Moving forward we’re going to see a lot more activity,” Sinnott said. “The new medical school in downtown Las Vegas is going to be a big project.” Other projects include a new Supreme Court building and a variety of corporate headquarters and technology businesses that are looking to join the area, he said.

North Las Vegas

Gina Gavan, director of economic and business development for the city of North Las Vegas, said the city has had strong growth over the past two years, with 16,000 new jobs generated in that time.

“Going forward, it’s about doing business. The mayor and the council have a goal of generating 100 million square feet of new (commercial) construction within the next several years,” she said.

Henderson

Barbara Coffee, director of economic development and tourism for Henderson, said the city is continuing to attract emerging industries and funding for workforce training programs.

“We also have about a million square feet of industrial space coming online right now … and that’s going to help us to attract companies in the near term. They no longer have to wait 18 months for space,” Coffee said. “It’s being ready to attract the kind of opportunities that are going to come our way.”

Boulder City

Mike Majewski, with Boulder City Economic Development, said the city is working to build the first unmanned aerial public airport in the world. He said the city is also working to ease the harm from the development of I-11.

“Boulder City will be losing almost a third of its traffic, and that means businesses along the highway are going to suffer from that,” Majewski said.

He said the city is looking to get into adventure tourism to counteract some of that effect.

Mesquite

Rachel Dahl, president and CEO of Mesquite Regional Business, said Mesquite is growing slowly.

“We have water, which is really unique in the state of Nevada. So, if some one has a company that needs water, we have two separate water districts, and they have plenty of water for growth,” Dahl said, adding that the city is working to take advantage of warehousing and advanced manufacturing.

Laughlin

Strategic Development Advisor at the Laughlin Economic Development Corporation Bob Bilbray said Laughlin is ripe for companies to take advantage of their “incredible” renewable energy resources and their availability of developable land. He said Laughlin has a robust retiree population available to take advantage of medical services.

“We have very little medical services, so there’s a lot of services that we need,” Bilbray said. “Laughlin retirees are spending approximately $2 to $3 million a month in Arizona to go to Arizona hospitals.”

Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @JournalistNikki on Twitter.