Investors buy 127 acres at Lake Las Vegas for new neighborhoods

Courtesy photo

This aerial view of Lake Las Vegas in Henderson shows 127 acres recently acquired by Southern California investors for new neighborhoods.

Southern California investors have acquired a big swath of land at Lake Las Vegas, the upscale and long-struggling Henderson development.

R.Y. Properties and its partners recently bought 127 acres for $12.5 million at the south edge of the once-foreclosed and formerly bankrupt 3,600-acre community. It has plans for residential development, according to a news release.

The land, which has already been graded and prepared for homes, is just east of the shuttered Falls Golf Club, near the main entrance off Lake Mead Parkway.

The deal was announced today by brokerage firm the Hoffman Co., which represented sellers with the Atalon Group.

The sale closed Dec. 22, property records show, and amounts to $98,425 an acre. That’s well below the $169,101 an acre that Southern Nevada land sells for on average, according to Colliers International data.

Brokers said Kimberly Yu, an executive with Alhambra, Calif.-based R.Y., indicated the group plans to develop three residential communities — Verona, with 127 lots; Providence, 112 lots; and Serrano, 105 lots.

This is R.Y.’s first land purchase at Lake Las Vegas, according to the sellers, who could not confirm whether the new owners plan to build homes themselves or sell the land in pieces to builders.

Yu did not return a call seeking comment.

“The land business has similarities to the Buddhist philosophy of birth, death and rebirth, and there is no place where this is more clear than Lake Las Vegas,” Hoffman broker Aman Lal said in the news release.

Lake Las Vegas was designed as an elegant Mediterranean village with a 320-acre, man-made lake but wound up one of the biggest real estate flops in one of the hardest-hit markets in the country.

Former developers lost the project to foreclosure after defaulting on $540 million in loans in 2007. Atalon acquired the project in early 2008 but pushed it into bankruptcy protection six months later.

The community emerged from bankruptcy court in summer 2010, reportedly under the control of Dallas investment firm Highland Capital Management and lenders led by Credit Suisse.

Along the way, golf courses and other businesses closed, tourism plunged and housing foreclosures soared.

The project later showed signs of improvement, with rising home prices and hotel occupancy inching higher. Also, Wall Street billionaire John Paulson acquired roughly 1,000 acres with plans to sell much of it to homebuilders. His company’s holdings include the Falls golf course and the Reflection Bay Golf Club, which closed in 2009 but reopened last fall.

Still, things are far from booming. Casino MonteLago, for instance, closed in fall 2013 and remains shuttered.

Lake Las Vegas’ only casino initially opened in 2003, closed in 2010 because an adjacent hotel locked its doors, and reopened in 2011 to throngs of gamblers.

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