Cold War-era bomb shelter on land being sold by CCSD

If you were looking for a cozy place to ride out a nuclear holocaust, you missed a chance to buy one this week.

The Clark County School District board of trustees on Thursday evening auctioned a parcel of land in the southwest Las Vegas Valley that, under its patch of dirt, has a Cold War-era bunker.

Spanning just over 2 acres, the site, formally known as Arden Yard, was valued at $990,000, district documents show.

Board President Irene Cepeda opened three sealed bids for the property, ranging from $1.05 million to more than $1.55 million, and then took oral bids from the audience. Two men, representing different bidders, went back and forth with higher offers.

At one point, Cepeda looked for any other bidders for “the lovely Arden Yard.”

“Comes with a bunker; lots of history,” she said. “Please let us take a field trip.”

No one else stepped forward. The winning bid, from US Express Carriers, amounted to $1,910,081.25.

US Express Carriers appears to be a trucking company. On its website, the firm touts fuel discounts, new trucks and trailers, weekly pay, “excellent” dispatch assistance, light loads and guaranteed miles.

Owner Maxim Cazacu could not be reached for comment Friday.

According to the school district, Clark County leased the Arden property, 6665 W. Gary Ave., from 1961 to 2018 and removed everything inside for historical or museum purposes.

Located in an industrial area east of Rainbow Boulevard and south of Blue Diamond Road, the bunker is about 6 feet underground and was built in the early 1950s, the Review-Journal reported in 2013.

If the Soviets dropped a nuclear bomb on Las Vegas, people who managed to get in the bunker were instructed to strip down and wash off radioactive fallout in a shower at the bottom of the wooden steps, the report said.

“If the bomb came, this was where you were going to be. This is where they planned to hole up,” now-retired Clark County museums administrator Mark Hall-Patton said at the time.

The bunker was supposed to serve as the control center for dozens of other fallout shelters in the Las Vegas area. It had a kitchen and a small infirmary and was stocked with enough food and water for several weeks or months.

Most of the space was taken up by a central control room and smaller offices once filled with communications gear, instruction manuals and emergency plans, the paper reported.

Equipped for 27 men and nine women, the underground refuge offered separate sleeping quarters, each packed with triple-deck bunk beds that were still there when a Review-Journal reporter toured the bunker in 2013.

The shelter isn’t the only one of its kind still left in Southern Nevada.

Las Vegas’ famed “Underground House,” off Flamingo Road between Maryland Parkway and Eastern Avenue, features a 15,000-square-foot bunker beneath a typical-looking two-story home.

Built in the 1970s, the expansive underground dwelling features a 5,000-square-foot home; a 450-square-foot guest home; a pool, spa and waterfall; artificial trees and other landscaping; settings to simulate dusk, day, sunset and night; and murals of various landscapes, including serene nature, according to news reports and listing materials.

And it, too, is for sale.

As seen on Zillow, the Underground House is listed for $5.9 million — a steep drop from its prior asking price of $18 million.

“Take an elevator ride down to an underground utopia,” the listing declares.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.