Companies such as Citibank and Expedia settle into Summerlin

South Burlington, Vt., has Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. Seattle has Starbucks. But Summerlin is home to its own businesses of note.

Why would a company want to be headquartered here? Ward 2 Las Vegas City Councilman Bob Beers cited the quality of life. Speaking on a spring day, he said companies use such weather to attract desirable recruits.

"You can't explain it to people," Beers said. "They have to experience it. We're standing in sunshine about 78 degrees, and today was a storm day. That's the kind of thing people from Chicago can't comprehend, and once they understand that that's what it's like all the time, they'll come."

District F Clark County Commissioner Susan Brager said a Summerlin location affords business travelers accessibility to other cities via McCarran International Airport.

"The (Las Vegas Beltway) takes them, without one signal when you're going to the south, to the airport connector and the business (corridor)," Brager said. "Everything is right here that you need."

Friendly tax laws are here, too.

"The taxation situation here in Nevada makes it desirable when starting a business," said Kevin Lustig, director of tax services for RMS McGladrey, a business consulting firm. "There is no income tax at all for business or individuals ... depending on the state, companies in other states could spend from 0.1 percent up to 10 percent."

Besides no corporate income tax or personal state income tax, he said there is also no franchise tax on income, no inheritance tax, no gift tax and, for those who dream big, no unitary tax (a corporate tax on global income).

In California, corporations get slammed with an 8.84 percent tax rate. Here, it is zero. It is no wonder companies such as Zappos move to Nevada.

The Citibank headquarters at 8701 W. Sahara Ave. was one of the first buildings to mark the city's expansion toward Summerlin more than two decades ago. It was about the same time The Lakes community was being constructed.

In fact, the company created something of a local stir when it insisted its mailing address be "The Lakes, Nevada" instead of "Las Vegas, Nevada" as a condition to relocating there. It didn't want customers mailing in their credit card payments and wondering if a casino was involved in the deal. The city of Las Vegas worked with Citibank and the U.S. Postal Service and eventually arranged for the creation of the more mundane postal destination.

Citibank has about 1,200 people working at the site. The building contains about 340,000 square feet of office space. Most of the employees support the company's mortgage, retail bank and Citi Cards businesses.

UnitedHealthcare, part of the UnitedHealth Group, occupies three towers on its main campus at 2724 N. Tenaya Way. Cheryl Randolph, spokeswoman, said UnitedHealthcare has roughly 3,000 employees there.

"Prior to 2007, United purchased Sierra Health Services, which was a local health plan, and they owned Southwest Medical Associates," she said. "So when they started, many years ago, they had that location (the campus just south of MountainView Hospital)."

What did she see as the pros and cons of being in Summerlin or the area around it?

"A lot of people live in the area; it's got easy access to the freeways, and there are a lot of options if you have to go out for lunch," she said. "So, it's nice and convenient for our employees."

She said even though everyone stays in touch via email or texts within the company these days, it is nice to have everyone on one campus in the event a face-to-face meeting is needed.

UnitedHealthcare's campus deals with people across the country. It is the largest health insurance provider in terms of members and revenue and operates in all 50 states, Randolph said. It has more than 75 million members, with roughly 720,000 of them in Nevada, according to its website, uhc.com.

For the past 10 years, Travelscape Inc. has had its call center at 10190 Covington Cross Drive. It is now part of the Expedia Inc. family of companies. There are more than 450 employees on site, including those working for Egencia, a corporate travel company also under Expedia's umbrella. Getting to and from work is easy with the Town Center Drive exit from Summerlin Parkway just up the street.

Tiffanie Bashay, human resources coordinator for Expedia, said she liked the suburban location, as she did "not have to battle any tourist traffic."

The only thing missing, she said, is an on-site cafeteria. But workers have a number of eateries nearby, including Technique, the student-run restaurant at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, 1451 Center Crossing Road.

Arcata Associates Inc. is an award-winning aerospace defense company. Its engineers helped design NASA's Mars Pathfinder.

The company is west of MountainView Hospital at 2588 Fire Mesa St., Suite 110. About 20 employees work at that location, but most work off-site.

"One of our biggest and longest clients is the Nevada Test and Training Range," said Tim Wong, president. "So, we still have 130 people that support Nellis (Air Force Base). This has been our home for 33 years, and we don't anticipate moving. That's a very important customer of ours."

The office location offers easy access to U.S. Highway 95 for other clients in Indian Springs, Beatty and Tonopah, he added.

Wong agreed that the tax structure was appealing to companies but said Las Vegas has its problems, too.

"Being able to recruit top talent can be a challenge, especially when we're talking about engineers, people with higher-level degrees," he said. "For them to want to bring their families here ... there's been a lot of negative press about the state of education in Nevada, so you have a lot to do to overcome that, especially when you're bringing in someone with a younger family."

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has done such a good job of making sure what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, that people in other parts of the country don't realize all the city offers, it says. Enlightening them is a part of Arcata's presentation to potential recruits.

"A lot of people, even though they visited Las Vegas before, only saw the Strip," Wong said. "So, they have no idea about the (amenities in the suburbs) especially in Summerlin - the parks, the recreational activities, Red Rock, Mount Charleston. It sometimes takes a little bit longer than the normal interview that you might have in other parts of the country to try and explain the different kinds of amenities that you have here in Las Vegas."

The Howard Hughes Corp. has regional headquarters in Summerlin. Its huge logo is on the Charleston Pavilion building, 10000 W. Charleston Blvd. The corporation takes up the third floor, more than 25,000 square feet, for its approximately 50 employees.

The ongoing development of Summerlin drove the location of the building operations, but were there other business-driven factors that caused the company to locate where it did?

"The executives at The Howard Hughes Corporation carefully selected an office environment located in the heart of Summerlin, in the planned 'downtown' area of the community -- exactly where Charleston Pavilion LLC is located," said Tom Warden, senior vice president of community and government relations. "This office location fully integrates (our) executives into the community while offering them convenient access to other Summerlin villages."

Hughes' national headquarters are in Dallas. The Charleston Pavilion also houses City National Bank, UBS Financial and Fertitta Enterprises.

Contact Summerlin/Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.