Guess who is spending big on Las Vegas real estate? This nonprofit hospital chain

Last fall, a hospital chain had big news for Las Vegas.

Intermountain Health unveiled plans for Nevada’s first stand-alone children’s hospital, promising needed care in a state with a chronic doctor shortage. The southwest valley facility would also bring an economic windfall, a consulting firm found.

The 200-bed hospital is slated to break ground next year in UNLV’s Harry Reid Research and Technology Park. But this isn’t the only move in Southern Nevada by Intermountain.

The nonprofit Utah medical system has expanded its footprint in America’s casino capital in multiple ways over the past several years. Besides planning a new children’s hospital, it has bought land and commercial buildings, started construction on a medical office complex, signed a naming-rights deal for the Raiders’ practice facility, and even bought a luxury house that it sold three years later to its own regional president.

Intermountain operates dozens of clinics in Southern Nevada. But its rising tally of deals shows the hospital system is betting on a bigger presence in Las Vegas, even though it still hasn’t developed a plot of land in a highly visible area that it’s owned for years.

Overall, Intermountain spent more than $100 million just buying real estate in Las Vegas over the past several years, property records show.

Intermountain spokesman Brad Gillman said in a statement that the hospital group invests in the communities it serves to ensure patients have access to high-quality health care close to home. In Nevada, he added, this includes a goal of building clinics and the children’s hospital, which is slated to be completed in 2030.

He also said that through extensive studies and assessments, Intermountain has identified areas where “additional resources are necessary, or will be in the future, as well as specialties and services that are currently unavailable.”

Land and football

The Salt Lake City-based medical system, which currently boasts 33 hospitals and hundreds of clinics across several Western states, established a big foothold in the Las Vegas Valley several years ago with its acquisition of HealthCare Partners Nevada, a physicians group that had 55 clinics locally.

Intermountain announced the deal in mid-2019. Less than two months later, it purchased a 7.7-acre plot of land next to the Boca Park retail center for almost $19 million.

The land — at the corner of Alta Drive and Rampart Boulevard, across the street from retail-and-office complex Tivoli Village — has long been used as a pumpkin patch with carnival games and rides and as a Christmas tree lot.

At the time of the purchase, an Intermountain spokesman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the hospital group was “thoughtfully assessing the needs of the community” but that there were “currently no plans for the site.”

The land remains undeveloped.

Months after the purchase, Intermountain put its name on a different kind of property: the Raiders’ then-under-construction practice facility in Henderson.

The Intermountain Health Performance Center, as it’s now known, features indoor and outdoor football fields and other training facilities for the NFL team.

Terms were not disclosed, but when the naming-rights deal was announced in late 2019, Intermountain said the “partnership” would be funded largely through its planned growth and operations in Nevada.

Bathrooms ‘beautifully finished in marble’

Intermountain also entered Las Vegas’ housing market. In 2021, it purchased a two-story, 4,618-square-foot house in The Ridges, a wealthy pocket of Las Vegas’ Summerlin community, for $2.9 million.

It sold the home last year for $2.93 million, property records show.

According to listing materials, the house came with top-of-the-line kitchen appliances; five bathrooms that were “beautifully finished in marble”; a large pool and hot tub; a basketball half-court; and a full outdoor kitchen.

Property records show the buyer last year was Mitchell Cloward, who in 2023 was named Intermountain’s Desert Region president overseeing all operations for Southern Nevada and southwest Utah.

Gillman, the spokesman, said that Intermountain has occasionally acquired residential property as part of relocation for leadership after its enters a market and that this is a common practice for big companies.

He also said that with Intermountain now established in Nevada, there was “no longer a need to own a local corporate residence,” and that Cloward bought it and made his home here.

Meanwhile, Intermountain is also developing a three-story medical office building on Badura Avenue near Cimarron Road in the southwest valley. It purchased the project site in 2021 for $12.5 million, Clark County records show.

Intermountain broke ground last year and recently held a topping-off ceremony, saying its Badura Clinic is scheduled to open early next year.

Additionally, Intermountain bought a three-story medical office building that’s already filled with tenants, on Alta Drive just east of Hualapai Way, near its long-owned undeveloped land. The $42.5 million sale closed in March, property records show.

Intermountain also purchased a newly built industrial building, located diagonally across Badura from its under-construction clinic, for almost $26 million last month.

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