Henderson council buys back land parcel

Longtime Henderson residents Jacob and Cheryl Snow fell in love with Water Street years ago, and in the spring of 2010, they approached city officials with their plan to buy a parcel of land there.

They wanted to build a home on the property, and Cheryl Snow also had an idea for a personal development business she could operate there.

"We talked and made plans and started to do some research," Jacob Snow said recently.

By the fall of 2010, things were coming together. They found a bank that would finance the project, hired an architect and began negotiating with the city.

And in February 2011, they paid $55,000 cash for a parcel at 314 Water St., just south of Emery's restaurant in Henderson's Downtown Redevelopment Area.

At the time, Jacob Snow was general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. But in April of this year, he was appointed city manager of Henderson, a position that also makes him executive director of the Redevelopment Agency.

At the May 15 City Council meeting, Jacob Snow disclosed his ownership of property in the city's redevelopment area.

"Now it's a conflict of interest for me under the new ethics policy and just in general," he later told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

At Tuesday night's meeting, the City Council, sitting as the Redevelopment Agency Board, terminated its disposition and development agreement with the Snow Family Trust and voted to buy the property back.

A clause in the agreement gave the city the right to buy the land back, at the price the Snows paid, if the project fell through.

But the project was doomed, even without the conflict of interest.

Although the Snows had finalized the design of the two-story, 3,500-square-foot building and had obtained the necessary permits, they lost their $400,000 loan after an appraiser visited the property and realized it was in a blighted area.

The appraiser told the couple the structure wouldn't even be worth $200,000 once it was completed, Jacob Snow said.

"At that point we started to scramble," he said.

The couple searched high and low for other financing, without success.

"No one was lending any money, especially for live-work and especially in the Las Vegas area," Jacob Snow said.

He estimates the couple lost $50,000 on their efforts to develop the parcel. That amount includes property taxes they have paid since purchasing it.

"I've had a similar experience to what many developers have had in Southern Nevada of late," Jacob Snow said.

As city manager, he receives an annual salary of $225,000. He and his wife, a part-time photographer, have lived in Henderson for 23 years.

Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at cgeer@reviewjournal.com or 702-384-8710.