End of the Line

Buildout Approaches at Las Vegas Corp. Center

After more than 10 years of construction, the Las Vegas Corporate Center is nearing final completion.

 

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Crews from TWC Construction of Las Vegas are putting the final touches on the next-to-the-last building at the corporate center, which is on Industrial Center Drive in North Las Vegas.

The Fremont, Calif., office of developer ProLogis Development Services is in the midst of pulling permits for the final speculative office/industrial building to be constructed. In total, the firm has developed 1.6 million sq. ft. at the 112-acre site.

The latest project to finish was a speculative 240,000-sq.-ft. concrete, single-story, tilt-wall building. It completed last month and takes its architectural cues from other buildings in the development.

"It's primarily a light-industrial, bulk-distribution facility, so it is fairly consistent with other buildings in the area," said architect Pete Blakely of Reno-based Blakely, Johnson and Ghusn Architects.

The recent unprecedented boom in Las Vegas Valley land prices combined with easy access to major transportation routes has made this sector in North Las Vegas extremely attractive to industrial developers. Acreage is now touching $400,000 per acre.

Kurt Fuller of ProLogis said the development features basically two types of design, with some buildings featuring columns at the entries and other buildings featuring more recesses with a parapet treatment.

All of the buildings are a standard tilt-up sitting on a slab-on-grade foundation and capped with a built up roof. The industrial project relies on roof top units for heating and cooling.

To minimize expensive earthwork, designers allowed a slight .5 percent grade for the slab on this building.

"If you have a sloping site, sloping the slab minimizes the cut and fill," said architect Chris Roper. "Otherwise, you are stuck playing games to balance the site or you are stuck with importing or exporting fill. A lot of developers are sloping the slab, and it is imperceptible, but over a 1,000-ft. stretch you can see it."

The latest speculative $5.6 million project currently has 24,000 sq. ft. of space leased with ProLogis in discussions for the remainder of the space.

"The biggest thing about this job is that it went together so well and usually we don't get that lucky," said Mark Wilmer, TWC Construction project manager. "ProLogis uses the same architects and engineers on the projects, so the guys know what needs to happen, and it comes together quite well without a lot of last-second changes."

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