Can You Dig It?

Upscale City Crossing Gets Down ‘n Dirty

By Christia Gibbons

What was until recently just another patch of scrub desert will soon evolve into Nevada’s newest mega-project, the $1.5 billion City Crossing. But first, tons of earthwork has to be completed and miles of underground utilities installed.

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It’s not just any dirt. It’s 126 acres of dirt for a six-year, $1.5 billion mixed-use project in Henderson, Nev., that will eventually be the foundation for boutique shopping, dining and entertainment venues, Class A office towers and 2,500 luxury residences.

It’s earth-moving time at City Crossing. Las Vegas-based Plise Construction is developer and contractor on the project, which has morphed from plans for a big-box distribution development into a city within a city.

Matthew Weinman, Plise president of construction, says that when he looks at the scrub desert and rock that are currently on the site of the development, he sees “this project, like a mirage. I see those high-rise office buildings.”

From sewer, water and gas to electricity and roads, the project will bring in infrastructure where none existed. A 1.5-mi, 16-in. pipeline will connect City Crossing to its water source, which alone is costing $2 million, Weinman says. The initial telecommunications portion of the project is another $500,000 expense.

All that takes, well, moving a lot of dirt.

An empty 126-acre site in Henderson will soon be home to a thriving mixed-use development known as City Crossing. Image courtesy Plise

Dick Riddle, president of Chaparral Contracting of Las Vegas is “the king of dirt,” Weinman says. As such he is clearing rocks, removing and replacing topsoil and grading to shape roadways, building sites, parks and open spaces.

Chaparral Contracting built an onsite crushing facility, which took three months to assemble, Riddle says. “The crushing operation is capable of crushing 3,000 tons of raw materials a day,” he says.

“Depending on the final grades and topography of the sites, the quantity of rock used onsite could be in the hundreds of thousands tons.”

Rocks too big to put on lifts as fill dirt are stockpiled and then run over a screen. Those too large for the screen are sent to the “jaw crusher” and broken down into usable size or crunched into gravel base.

Weinman says the land largely is made up of volcanic rock and cobblestone. As such, “It’s literally a jack hammer project, or as my kids say, it’s ginormous,” he adds.

At this moving-dirt stage, the project requires two bulldozers, four scrapers, one compactor, one water pull, a water truck and two motor graders.

Mike Bailey, director of engineering and senior project director for WRG Design Inc., based in Portland, Ore., calls City Crossing dynamic.

“This is the kind of project I’m personally working on to be satisfied professionally,” said the 30-year industry veteran.

Bailey said communication is key to a project of this size as site plans change when potential tenants show interest. He stays in tune with the marketing people.

“My challenge is not to back them into a corner,” Bailey says. “Once I do my job, it’s built.” The project has bimonthly team meetings, and Bailey says he e-mails the appropriate people “two, three, four, a half dozen times a day.”

Bailey adds that engineering has to be flexible enough that the road to a 1-acre pod can be realigned, for example, for a 2-acre pod as tenants come on board. None of the parties would reveal tenants, or potential tenants, at this time.

Bailey says his favorite thing about working on the project is the sheer size.

“It’s great when you work on a project out in the middle of nowhere and five years later it’s in the downtown and is one of its focal points,” he says.

Plise’s Weinman says he feels much the same way. “I like the potential with building something of this magnitude, this variety,” he adds. “We have the possibility that by this time next year, office, parking, hotels, retail, restaurants will be under construction at the same time.”

The office park should break ground in the third quarter, Weinman says.

The first office building of 226,000 sq ft is trying for LEED silver certification. Plise also has entered into a development agreement with Henderson to help recoup costs as other developments latch onto the newly created infrastructure.

City Crossing includes 400,000 sq ft of retail space, 150,000 sq ft of dining and entertainment space and more than 1 million sq ft of Class A office space.

Close to major residential communities of Seven Hills and Anthem and the yet-to-be developed Inspirada master-planned community, “we fit perfectly with that puzzle that’s been created,” Weinman says of bringing in office and retail.

City Crossing will eventually include one-, two- and three-bedroom homes from 900 sq ft to 3,000 sf ft in loft units above some of the retail, and in high- and low-rise residential structures.

Key Players :

Developer/ General Contractor: Plise Development & Construction LLC
Architects: Vedelago Petsch Architects; Architects Orange
Engineer: WRG Design; MSA Engineering
Excavation/Earthwork: Chaparral Contracting
Electrical: Talon Electric

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