Deer Springs commercial center sale boosting hope for area growth
North Las Vegas’ Deer Springs Town Center changed hands for $50.5 million last month, the largest commercial real estate deal recorded in the Las Vegas Valley this year.
The sprawling 62-acre center, home to Home Depot, Staples and other big- box retailers since 2009, was built by Florida’s Regency Centers Corp. and sold to Pennsylvania-based Stoltz Realty partners.
The May 5 deal will see the transfer of more than 500,000 square feet of retail space at the intersection of North Fifth Street and the Las Vegas Beltway, including 12 undeveloped, graded parcels with room for six smaller retail outlets.
More than 17,000 planned residential units remain undeveloped within a two-mile radius of the center, which was 86 percent occupied at the time of the sale.
Mark Lucescu, president of Newport Beach, Calif.-based Lucescu Realty, which brokered the deal, thinks that’s about to change.
“It’s an institutional quality piece of real estate, built by one of the premier real estate investment and development companies in the U.S.,” Lucescu said. “Regency did a great job assembling the land, lining these tenants up and built a great center.
“Stoltz should do well with this acquisition as they continue their pursuit of high-quality commercial real estate assets throughout the Las Vegas Valley.”
The deal continues a run of good news for Southern Nevada retailers and business owners heartened by recent expansions at Summerlin Centre, Las Vegas Premium Outlets-North and Warren Buffett’s $5.6 billion acquisition of NV Energy late last month.
Lucescu expects Las Vegas and Phoenix will continue “to lead the recovering markets in the western U.S.” So does Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst with Las Vegas-based economic analysis firm Applied Analysis.
The good news, Aguero said, is that North Las Vegas appears to be along for the ride.
“I think the deal’s more significant as far as growth for the region,” Aguero said. “All these things build up to something bigger, and (the deal) means North Las Vegas is not being left out of that growth.”
Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services reports investors have begun to express optimism in the Las Vegas Valley retail market, a sign growth, or at least stability, may be on its way in 2013.
North Las Vegas Economic Development administrator Terri Sheridan would like to see the city’s underserved retail market become the epicenter for that possible rebound.
Deer Springs, she said, counts as a good start.
“I’m pleased to see someone took an interest in spaces out here,” Sheridan said. “(Deer Springs) is a large power center, and it seems like there’s a revival happening in the economy.
“It would be our hope that a center like that, with large anchors like a Best Buy, can be something that can attract people to the area.”
The question for city Finance Director Al Zochowski is whether that growth could help fill the city’s empty coffers.
Without a major uptick in surrounding residential development, he’s not optimistic.
“Further residential development around (Deer Springs) would help us in our property tax collections, but it won’t change the (consolidated) tax formula,” Zochowski said, referring to the state-disbursed revenues from sales, liquor and cigarette taxes. “We still get 4.75 percent of C tax distributions in Clark County.”
The city has long fought for a bigger cut of those disbursements, which aren’t routed back to where sales and use taxes are first collected.
“That’s something that we went (to the legislature) and fought about, but for right now, we’re likely going to see a minor benefit as the taxing district that collects those taxes.”
Contact Centennial and North Las Vegas View reporter James DeHaven at jdehaven@viewnews.com or 702-477-3839.