Incorporated on May 1, 1946, the City of North Las Vegas (NLV) has a long history in southern Nevada. Since its beginnings, the city has established itself as an economic oasis in the region due to the area’s abundance of land, steady pipeline of available workers, pro-business environment and easy reach to western markets.

The city’s draw can effectively be summed up in three words: land, infrastructure, opportunity. With Apex ramping up, North Las Vegas boasts an enviable 18,000 acres of land in the industrial park, 7,000 of which are developable. That leads to 24 million square feet of planned industrial space for potential users and investors.

However much land there is, infrastructure is a vital component for growth. Leadership at North Las Vegas recognized this early on and brought the integral stakeholders to the table. By partnering with Southwest Gas, NV Energy and Southern Nevada Water Authority, among others, North Las Vegas’ economic development team is able to provide ready solutions to any of the myriad of issues that can arise when building large developments.

Both land and infrastructure naturally lead to opportunity within the City of North Las Vegas. The region has become a land rich in possibility and ripe for investments. As the city grows, so too do the amenities available to both businesses and families alike. From miles of trails and parks to new lifestyle offerings and an enriched downtown region, North Las Vegas is making its mark on southern Nevada.

North Las Vegas Has Become a Shining City On A Hill

Once on the brink of bankruptcy, now a national leader in government best practices, North Las Vegas has become a shining city upon a hill.

Less than a decade ago, Nevada’s third largest city faced a grim future, days away from state receivership and dissolution. Today, the words “North Las Vegas” have become synonymous with economic development, with the city landing the lion’s share of noteworthy development projects in Nevada in recent years. Thousands of new jobs, billions of dollars of investment, and new industries that are diversifying the local and state economies have resulted.

“North Las Vegas was on the verge of being dissolved because of poor and visionless leadership, not because the city lacked assets capable of being leveraged,” City Manager Dr. Ryann Juden said. “Through shared vision and a determination not to let the city fail, we turned the concept of government on its head and made it easy and comfortable for companies to do business with us. We became experts on how to strip down the bureaucracy, put humans in front of the paperwork, and deliver unparalleled customer service and results.”

Under Juden’s leadership, the City of North Las Vegas injected private-sector thinking into government bureaucracy. They leveraged a solid plan and strong leadership to achieve the ideal of a city upon a hill. Borrowing from the Sermon on the Mount, Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Obama all used the term “a shining city upon a hill” to express this country’s exceptionalism. They saw government as a beacon of hope and comfort for residents, grown from a foundation of great trust and responsibility.

From Guatemala to Japan, experts have traveled across the world to meet with Juden and his team to learn their approach.

“The city’s success has been celebrated by scholars, government experts, bonding agencies, and municipal leaders internationally,” said UNLV Professor Dr. David Damore, Executive Director of The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West. “North Las Vegas has successfully streamlined government to thoughtfully attract new enterprise to the state, leading to rapid economic development in southern Nevada.”

At the heart of the city’s successes is Apex Industrial Park, a unique 18,000-acre gem with 7,000 acres of developable land. Juden’s team leveraged innovative public-private partnerships with Clark County, the Southern Nevada Water Authority and Western States Construction to build a $300 million water line to bring utilities to Apex and solve a 30-year challenge. This enabled the city to, in a very responsible and durable way, oversize investment into the community to increase services for residents while holding the line flat on taxes. Then the city turned to recruiting diverse companies to grow a new tax base. This was bolstered by the business-friendly culture the city established.

“The City of North Las Vegas is a great model of how governments should be run; they understand private sector challenges and how to make government part of the solution and not an obstacle to progress,”  said Weston Adams, President and CEO of Western States Construction, which partnered with North Las Vegas on the Apex water line.

Today, business is booming at Apex, which is expected to be one of the largest future tax bases in Nevada, projected to create 73,000 jobs and $7 billion dollars of investment over the next 20 years. Five industrial parks are currently in development, with impressive Fortune 500 companies and tenants including Kroger, Air Liquide, Crocs, Inc./HEYDUDE, CarMax, DHL, Werner Enterpises, Prolgis and VanTrust.

“Thanks to visionary partners like Weston Adams, we were able to build the infrastructure necessary to attract the new tax paying businesses needed to right size the city’s budget and restore city services,” Dr. Juden said.

North Las Vegas Senior Director of Economic Development and Government Affairs Jared Luke now spends much of his time at Apex, leading the phenomenal growth taking place there. He and Juden sometime drive the long winding road to Upper Apex to watch trucks move dirt and workers raise walls. From the desert mountain top, you can see all of Apex and much of North Las Vegas. The view today is vastly different than it was a decade ago.

A shining city upon a hill, indeed.

Deals + Developments

Anyone seeking proof of North Las Vegas’ success and growth, need look no further than the companies and projects moving to the region. From significant investments in the city’s downtown and existing amenities to new developments offering the latest in entertainment and dining, the City of North Las Vegas is being boosted from the inside out.

“North Las Vegas is growing and that creates opportunities for local businesses,” said Aaron Lefton, president of acquisitions and leasing with Agora Realty and Management. “The city is pro-business [and] I feel that creates a great advantage. Over the past 10 years the city has recruited companies that created more than 63,000 jobs.”

Agora Realty is responsible for two of North Las Vegas’ major developments and, according to Lefton, the organization is working on even more. “The City of North Las Vegas is great to work with because they take a collaborative approach to our projects,” said Lefton. “They care about their community and do everything they can to help local businesses be successful.”

One of Agora’s current projects is a mixed-use development in downtown North Las Vegas that will include medical office and healthcare facilities, shops, restaurants and public spaces. The first building in the downtown project is a 22,000 square medical office building which is expected to be complete in April of 2024 even as the next sites are breaking ground. “[North Las Vegas] has never had a downtown and we are working closely with the city and their stakeholders to help create one,” said Lefton.

In addition, Agora is working on a 73-acre mixed use development called Hylo Park. The development will include residential, retail, hospitality and a sports-centric lifestyle plaza when complete in late-2025 or early-2026. “The project will incorporate a state-of-the-art sports facility to cater to the growing sports demand in southern Nevada,” said Lefton. “We also have amazing retailers that will create synergy between the youth sports that will be programmed and the community.” Hylo Park will feature a 160,000 square-foot indoor sports facility when complete.

Other projects new to the area include the Helios Medical Campus which is a public/private partnership between the City of North Las Vegas and Pacific Group. The campus will create a healthcare hub in the region and is located across from the North Las Vegas VA Medical Center. When complete in the next seven to 10 years, Helios will encompass a medical district for North Las Vegas which features 2 million square feet of laboratory, research and medical office space as well as over 500,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.

Beyond the new developments moving in, North Las Vegas has seen an influx of new companies coming to the area. Two newcomers to the region are Arvato, a business to business and e-commerce logistics company, and Tapestry, a multinational luxury fashion holding company.

“We are constantly looking for strategic locations to expand our network and actively enhance our ability to better serve our clients,” said Gene Stephenson, director of operations with Arvato. The organization recently completed a logistics hub in the city. “North Las Vegas emerged as the ideal location for our new hub due to several factors. It’s location along major interstates provide a good proximity to major cities across the West Coast region, allowing us to reduce transit times and deliver costs for our tech client,” Stephenson added.

For Tapestry, it was a matter of expansion. “As Tapestry grew, the need to expand beyond our Jacksonville facility, which had been the primary fulfillment center since 1995, became clear,” said Ken Sanders, senior vice president logistics and distribution with Tapestry. “Looking to better serve our West Coast customers and begin implementing multiple nodes across the United States, we knew we wanted to operate in Nevada and, based on size, saw the perfect location and opportunity in North Las Vegas.”

For both organizations, North Las Vegas’ location and business-friendly atmosphere were key to their decision to locate in the region. “The City of North Las Vegas has been an excellent and integral partner in ensuring the success of opening our fulfillment center,” said Sanders.

Stephenson concurred, “From securing permits to facilitating connections with local resources and working with us to find solutions to challenges we faced, they have acted as true partners that contributed significantly to launch readiness of our facility. We appreciate their commitment to attracting businesses like ours to a thriving economic environment.”

In addition to the location, Sanders cites the available workforce as a major draw for Tapestry. “Along with the immense support and assistance from local public officials, we partnered with the state of Nevada’s Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation Agency (DETR), attended job fairs at local Hispanic services locations and at the Nellis Air Force base, as well as various veterans’ groups to build awareness of our brand and facility and to attract talent,” said Sanders. “These local partnerships have ensured not only that we’ve developed a facility we’re proud of, but have established an incredible team which speaks to the culture of this company and dedication to investing in this community.”

As more new business look to North Las Vegas, the city has made a concerted effort to be available and ready for any opportunities that come their way. From Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown to those individuals welcoming visitors to City Hall, North Las Vegas seeks to project an open arms approach to new business.

Apex Industrial Park

The crown jewel in North Las Vegas’ portfolio is Apex. The park was conceptualized as early as 2008 when North Las Vegas began annexing land to further the city limits. What began as land growth soon fostered a vision of what could be in a region with an abundance of land, but dire shortage of available land.

As developers scrambled to find tracts large enough to house the vast buildings required for their end users, such as manufacturers, data hubs and logistics suppliers, leadership at the City of North Las Vegas began to notice and find solutions. Leading the charge to develop Apex was former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee.

“I think Mayor Lee was a businessman at heart, even when he came into the City,” said Tom Brady, PE, LEED AP, director of utilities for the City of North Las Vegas. “He coined the phrase ‘grow-nomics’ and trying to diversify our economy was his brainchild. Then he started finding practical ways to do that and looking at what we can do in case of other recessions to make sure you still had people that were gainfully employed.”
Part of that diversification has been to bring in a variety of industries and provide them a home in Apex. That starts with infrastructure. “Our test case [was] with the Speedway,” said Brady. “There is no significant area of undeveloped property in the Speedway area today. That just goes to prove that this is possible and doable. We’re starting to see it already with the speed at which land is being taken down in the Apex area. So, it’s not a baseball field, but build it and they are coming.”

Partnering with Nevada’s major utilities, North Las Vegas began to “build it” so to speak. “I remember, it was probably ten years ago, Mayor Lee held a utility summit,” Justin Brown, president of Southwest Gas recalled. “He was big on making sure people appreciated the opportunity for growth in North Las Vegas. He brought together all the utilities and laid out his vision. It really starts with that, in terms of the ongoing coordination where there was a concerted effort to make sure the utilities are working together, that the infrastructure is there, so that when people are coming for opportunities, it’s as close to turnkey as can be.”
“We really work to make sure we are coordinating efforts to support new development within the city,” said Jeff Brigger, director of business development for NV Energy. “Coordinating our efforts allows us to get stuff built. We couldn’t do this without the coordination and the willingness of the City of North Las Vegas. That’s very important.”

Brigger added that, in addition to the City and their vision to create Apex, the developers that came in and are building the region are equal stakeholders in its success. “They’re the ones really making the big risk and moving dirt,” he said. “Without them and their willingness to partner with us as well, it would be a different story out there.”

Several developers have already made their mark on the region, some have been there for years, others are new to the area. One thing they all have in common, however, is a shared vision of the scope and opportunity in Apex.

“It’s extremely exciting for southern Nevada,” said John Ramous, partner with Dermody Properties. “[Apex] is able to put southern Nevada in a competitive situation where they can compete, not only nationally and regionally, but also globally, where before they didn’t have that opportunity. I’ve been there for many years and we’ve always talked about it, but now we’re able to scale to accommodate growth in Apex.”

Dermody recently completed Logisticenter at Miner’s Mesa, a 664,300 square foot spec. building situated on nearly 40 acres in Apex. “We just got the certificate of completion in January,” said Ramous.
In addition to Dermody, VanTrust and Prologis are developers that have a long-standing relationship in Apex. “The first project we did we called Northgate Distribution Center,” explained Keith Earnest, executive vice president of VanTrust. Northgate consisted of two phases and was accompanied by a VanTrust project at Tropical and Sloan. “All in all, it was a combined 6 million square feet, once we had Northgate and Tropical done,” explained Earnest. The properties boast tenants such as Amazon, Fanatics, The Honest Company, Sephora and Novva Data Center.

For Prologis, it’s a matter of size with Apex offering the space demanded by end-users. “It’s customer momentum,” explained Mathias Hughes, vice president investment officer at Prologis when asked what he likes about Apex. “We continue to see customer pressure to move out there. If you said, ‘I’ve got a million square foot deal,’ those buildings do not exist. We’ve elected to go up to Apex given our experience and our customers in North Las Vegas.”

One of the new developers to the region, Northpoint Development is hitting the ground running in Apex with the North Las Vegas Logistics Center. The project includes two buildings encompassing over 2 million square feet on 130 acres. The center’s first building is already fully leased and one of those tenants is Crocs, Inc./HEYDUDE, an internationally recognized casual footwear brand. For Northpoint, access to labor was a significant consideration.

“When I sourced the site a few years ago, labor force was a big attribute we zeroed in on,” said Geoff Griffin, vice president of development with Northpoint. “Las Vegas competes with Phoenix. We also looked at Phoenix as a market but we took a land position in Las Vegas because the labor pool was better.”

Griffin added the City of North Las Vegas’ business-friendly approach clinched the developer’s decision to move into the region. “Meeting with them early on, it was apparent they were motivated and really wanted to help developers get up and operational sooner rather than later, which is not always the case,” he said. “City staff was a big reason we pushed forward in North Las Vegas.”

“North Las Vegas has always been a very strong submarket,” said Ramous. “Over the last 10 to 15 years, because of the abundance of available land for logistics, it’s really created an opportunity for the industry. It’s also a very pro-development city, very business friendly.”

“The City of North Las Vegas is a huge partner for us,” added Hughes. “They’re communicative, they’re creative. They’ve done a great job of enabling development in a reasonable manner.”

Earnest also considers the city an important partner on VanTrust projects. “We view them as somebody that is looking to facilitate business, good business practice and thoughtful business practice. For us, those are the kind of places you want to be.”

Why North Las Vegas?

From the growing lifestyle offerings to the wide-open spaces available for development, North Las Vegas is a city on the rise. Land, infrastructure and opportunity continue to be by-words for the City’s economic development team as they seek creative ways to diversify the region.

“North Las Vegas offers competitive advantages for businesses with its business-friendly tax climate, modern infrastructure and continued region growth to provide a strong foundation for success,” said Stephenson. “The City and local organizations also offer valuable support and resources to help businesses thrive.”

Brady, who retired in February after 29 years of service, summed up the City’s commitment to growth. “One of our fundamental values is accountability,” he said. “We’re problem solvers at heart. We’ve tried to do everything we can, keeping those principles in mind, we want to make sure we’re providing quality service. But, we also want to create opportunity, not just for business and development, but for our City as a resource for the Valley. It sometimes takes visionaries to get us thinking in a different direction. Realizing that us, continuing to do what we do, but with great purpose can have such a profound effect. That’s been very rewarding for me.”

He added, “We’re really trying to push the envelope to make sure we can stick to our commitments and make sure we truly are the community of choice.”

C-Suite Corner Executive Profile

Ken Seidl

VP of Global Operations
Bella + Canvas

Why did you choose North Las Vegas for Bella + Canvas?
There are multiple factors that led to choosing North Las Vegas for our Bella + Canvas west coast DC.

North Las Vegas is logistically advantageous.  I can get orders delivered to every city on the west coast, from San Diego to Seattle, in one business day via ground service.

North Las Vegas has the labor we need to run the operation.  Not only is there an ample supply of labor, but I have also found the labor pool to be a higher caliber employee.

It is less expensive to do business in North Las Vegas than most geographies on the west coast.

North Las Vegas is easy to get in and out of.  From Harry Reid International Airport to the expansive highway connections, we have no trouble getting people and products where they need to go.

North Las Vegas is business friendly.  We were able to take advantage of tax benefits offered and work with the local government to start up our business.  Mayor Goynes-Brown and her team, including Economic Development Manager, Brittany West, were our partners from the building of the facility to the ribbon cutting ceremony, to every day business needs.

What are your future plans within the City?
We plan to continue to grow our business and fully utilize our facility.  We plan to continue to be a good neighbor and assist North Las Vegas however we can.

What do you like about working with North Las Vegas?
Everything listed in #1 and you are minutes away from some of the best restaurants in the world.

Shannon Sisler

Executive Vice President & Chief People Officer
Crocs, Inc. 

Why did you choose North Las Vegas for HEYDUDE?
North Las Vegas is growing rapidly, and so is Crocs, Inc. We needed a larger facility to support increased demand for HEYDUDE products and allow us to grow into the future. The HEYDUDE brand already had a presence in North Las Vegas, and it was an easy decision to stay. The workforce is incredible, the community is welcoming, and the city is supportive of our growth.

What are your future plans within the city?
Our plan is to grow together with the City of North Las Vegas. Our new facility will serve as the main distribution center for the HEYDUDE brand nationwide. We are currently staffed at 400 associates with the opportunity to flex up to 1,200 associates. We are excited to continue to hire throughout the community and are encouraged by the response of the workforce. Anyone interested can visit careers.crocs.com to search open roles.

What do you like about working with North Las Vegas?
North Las Vegas has been incredibly supportive since we began operating in the city. We have been in lockstep throughout the process of building our new distribution center, from planning to groundbreaking to grand opening. The economic development team has been responsive and proactive in understanding our needs as we plan for growth. The city is truly invested in our success.

Why should other businesses consider North Las Vegas?
The City of North Las Vegas is committed to establishing strong, personal relationships with its business partners. The city’s continued development of infrastructure throughout the area will support the growth of Crocs, Inc. and other companies with a presence in the area.

Chandler Swenson

VP of Construction and Real Estate
Novva Data Centers 

Why did you choose North Las Vegas for Novva Data Centers?
North Las Vegas is an ideal location for a data center because it allows us to take advantage of the abundant renewable energy sources in the region. Its proximity to other major western technology hubs and its development as an economic hub of its own were also large factors.

What are your future plans within the City?
We look forward to opening our data center this year and continuing to foster relationships with local leaders and businesses. Our next phase is already underway as we bring online a wholly owned on-premise substation for renewable energy created in partnership with NV Energy. This will allow us to continue with subsequent phases and provide additional capacity for current and future customers.

What do you like about working with North Las Vegas?
Everyone we’ve met has been fantastic to work with. City staff have been responsive, supportive, and willing to solve problems. We hope to reciprocate the warm welcome we’ve received by being good stewards of local resources and growing North Las Vegas’ reputation as a business hub.

Why should other businesses consider North Las Vegas?
The City of North Las Vegas Economic Development Team is dynamic and adept, which was a huge benefit for us. The large and talented workforce in the community coupled with Nevada’s tax incentives make it a great place to do business.

Contact City of North Las Vegas Economic Development

Senior Director
Jared Luke
702.633.1087
lukej@cityofnorthlasvegas.com

Director
Terri Sheridan
702.633.1135
sheridant@cityofnorthlasvegas.com

Manager
Brittany West
702.633.1531
westb@cityofnorthlasvegas.com

Economic Development Specialist
Brendan Leake
702.633.1529
leakeb@cityofnorthlasvegas.com

Data Researcher
McKenna Enriquez
702.633.2034
enriquezm@cityofnorthlasvegas.com