Lessons From a Rich History of Development in Las Vegas

The Thursday, February 15^th NAIOP Southern Nevada’s breakfast program was titled – “Lessons Learned from a Rich History of Development in Las Vegas.”  That morning we were graced with The Moderator of moderators. None other, than Mr. Rick “It Matters” Myers, President of Thomas & Mack Development.

The panel that morning … whoooooooo weeeeeeee! The panel was a doozy!

• Frank Martin, CEO, Martin Harris Construction, General Contractor – 1965
• Randy Broadhead, Senior Vice President, CBRE, Office Broker – 1983
• Kevin Higgins, Executive Vice President, CBRE, Industrial Broker – 1985
• Ed Vance, Founder and CEO, Ed Vance & Associates, Architect – 1987
• Dan Doherty, Executive Vice President, Colliers, Industrial Broker – 1989
• Phil Ralston, President, America Nevada Company, Developer – 1995

Thank you to Michael Hoshue with Cox Communications for sponsoring!

It was so interesting how Rick opened the show. In the introductions he asked every panelist what year they started in the business. Look back up at the list of panelists. The year at the end of each name is when they started.

Those who attended this breakfast were seriously treated with three types of content which I will outline in just a moment.  First, I want to rub it in a bit for those who were not there. Unless you lived it, where else, and how else would you be able to get the domain knowledge of Las Vegas commercial real estate development over the last 20-40 years?! This program was incredibly insightful. Fortunately, there are these Takeaways. But reading about it here is like getting ice cream from the freezer at home vs. the ice cream truck. It’s just not the same!
Ok. What were the three types of content shared?

First was an overall history and evolution of development from when Mark Fine put Raytheon in Summerlin when nothing else was around it to when America Nevada started development for Ford Motor Credit’s office in Henderson having only signed acceptance of responsibility for the engineering in order to obtain permits early. There were about a dozen such stories. Each one illuminating context in buildings that we drive by daily. In this era it would take 3 months to get entitlements and 6 months to put up a building. How do you like them apples?

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