Casino Connection Nevada

Masterminds

Planned communities bring order to development

by Greg Jones

Master planned communities are nothing new, but as Las Vegas continues to deal with skyrocketing populations and unprecedented growth, such projects are being developed throughout the valley.

Inspirada, Mountain’s Edge, Nevada Trails, Park Highlands, Aliante, Southern Highlands, Anthem, Lake Las Vegas and even Summerlin itself are all master planned communities. And while they are all designed around the same principals, they each offer something a little bit different.

The idea of the master planned community has its roots in the Southwest, where land tends to be plentiful, outward growth is possible and populations continue to climb. The first of such communities was developed in the 1960s in Scottsdale, Arizona, when city officials forsaw the need for strategic growth to prevent unsightly and uninviting sprawl.

What sets master planned communities apart from normal suburban developments is the logical inclusion of amenities like parks, lakes and golf courses as well as retail and commercial components. Where the typical subdivision might be located near a park or golf course and close to a mall, office or industrial complex, the master planned development considers the relationship between these differently zoned areas before ground is broken. The result is a more structured and more organized community that in many ways resembles a small city or town as a self-sustaining part of a larger metropolitan area. Some communities are even being designed to include schools, police departments and fire stations.

“Master planned communities are suburbia’s response to the boring, cookie-cutter, detached globs of housing that still make up much of America’s suburban nation,” said Chris Fiscelli, of the non-profit Reason Foundation. “They offer numerous amenities without losing the lower-density, suburban feel that attracted so many people to the suburbs in the first place. Residents get quality infrastructure like parks, schools, and new roads, shopping close to home, community services, a ‘city inside a city’ feel and neighbors that genuinely feel connected in some fashion.”

The same, but different

The master planned idea centers around creating communities and attracting like-minded people together. This is done through a number of ways, such as bringing together golfers with a community designed around a golf course such as Anthem or Aliante or attracting active people with a community that incorporates a large number of walking, running and biking trails as is the case in Nevada Trails.

At Focus Property Group’s Mountain’s Edge, it is philanthropy that is a large part of the esprit de corps. Public spaces and community facilities are made available for charitable events, and the community partners with civic organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

At Somersett in northern Nevada, parks, golf courses and a 25,000-square-foot recreation facility allow the homeowners association (HOA) to schedule events for all members of the community, including potluck dinners, dances, parties and even things like pottery classes. In North Las Vegas, the Aliante community has 428 acres of recreational land in addition to a 1,700-acre golf course, children’s parks and 24 miles of trails (there will also be a casino component).

“I think one of the things consumers are aching for is a return to communities that embrace neighborhoods and embrace social interaction as opposed to the post-World War II urban-sprawl neighborhoods that really were built more around the car,” said John Ritter of Focus Property Group, developer of Mountain’s Edge and Inspirada.

Inspirada is an enormous development off St. Rose Parkway in Henderson with housing for 26,000 residents—enough to be classified as a city unto itself. But through creative design elements—narrow streets, trails and sidewalks, homes positioned near the street with garages hidden in back alleys—developers hope it will maintain the same feeling of a small and intimate community.

And while the guiding principals behind the development of a master planned community are the same, the end results often differ significantly. Not only are there the different amenities, but the various communities take on unique looks with the HOA continuing a continuity of design and appearance as set out by the original developer. In Summerlin, for example, a design review committee approves all add-ons and other structures, while the so-called “garden communities” must include elements like trellises and utilize colors indicative of a garden. Such restrictions help protect the value of a neighborhood by ensuring that homes are in good condition and appearance, but they also help set neighborhoods apart.

“Every community takes on a life of its own, has its own identity,” Ritter said.

Building smart

The current trend in master planned communities can be tied to the new urbanist movement, which dates back to the 1980s. This movement looks to develop neighborhoods that are diverse and walkable, contain a mix of residential and commercial zones and promote green and sustainable development. The walkability component in a project like Inspirada comes from the fact that the series of trails puts all residents within a quarter mile of the community’s center park.

By encouraging pedestrian traffic, the community hopes to cut down on the reliance on automobiles. Inspirada developers are even looking at transit stops that can be easily incorporated into the community if Henderson ever develops a mass transit system. Outside of the health reasons to reduce automobile use, there are also environmental reasons, and environmental sustainability is another key component of the master planned community.

Water and power conservation are taken into consideration by developers as more communities look to integrate green features. Such conservation efforts are appreciated in southern Nevada, where electricity usage skyrockets in summer months as people attempt to keep their homes cool despite 115-degree temperatures and where some experts say the only thing that could stymie growth is limited access to water.

While electricity usage is largely passed on to the individual customer, water usage—and more importantly water waste—is something that has an impact that goes beyond the Las Vegas Valley and impacts the entire state. With the Southern Nevada Water Authority looking to tap into ground water resources in central and northern Nevada, and with some scientists predicting that Lake Mead could be empty by 2021, water conservation is an idea that is finally taking hold among the non-native desert dwellers.

One way developers are finding to conserve water is the use of centrally located community pools. With maintenance and upkeep costs covered by HOA fees, everyone who lives in the development has access to a large pool that is usually part of a larger recreation area. Not only does this foster a greater sense of community by providing a location of residents to gather, it also reduces the water lost to evaporation from having hundreds of smaller pools spread throughout the development.

Another feature that is catching on is desert landscaping. While some people refuse to abandon the idea that they have a right to grow non-native, water-intensive grasses in the desert, a large number of homeowners are accepting that desert landscaping is more sensible for a yard in the desert.

At Mountain’s Edge, there is a garden planted with native plant species to show residents what plants are sustainable in the desert environment. Focus Property Group even went so far as to publish a book called Legendary Landscapes and give it to homeowners to help them in creating yards that use water efficiently.

“When we first decided to do the project this way about five years ago, there was a lot of resistance and a lot of people said it wouldn’t be successful because homeowners want palm trees and lawns,” Ritter said. “What we found is quite the opposite.”

The ultimate amenity

In Las Vegas, no community is really complete without a neighborhood casino, and that is something that an increasing number of developers are taking into consideration. Two new projects in North Las Vegas, Aliante and Park Highlands, include casino projects that are partnerships between the community developers and major locals casino operators Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming.

Aliante Station is the appropriately named development that is part of the Aliante development. The $675 million casino will feature 202 hotel rooms, 14,000 square feet of meeting space and a movie theater. When it opens later this year, it will also bring some 2,000 slot machines, table games and, of course, a handful of restaurants to the area. It is worth noting that the casino is also master planned to allow for future growth as the community demand for entertainment increases.

Down the street, the Park Highlands development recently announced plans to work with Boyd Gaming to develop a casino, resort and spa on 66 acres within the community. This project is in the early stages and doesn’t yet have the necessary zoning to allow for gaming, but most experts believe that it will come to fruition.

“Boyd Gaming provides Park Highlands with a casino entertainment component that completes our vision for a community-centric, master planned development, “said Gerry Goett, chairman and CEO of developer Olympia Group.

These new project follow in the tradition of projects like Station Casinos’ Green Valley Ranch in Green Valley and the Red Rock Casino in Summerlin.