VEGAS INC Magazine - Latest Las Vegas business news, features and commentaries about gaming, tourism, real estate and more
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In business real estate downtown analyst says housing market remains fragile councilman targets retrofitting code By Eli Segall staff writer The home construction business keeps gaining speed in Las Vegas, but a local analyst is warning people not to get too excited. A total of 1,633 new homes were sold in the Las Vegas Valley in the three months ending March 31, almost double the same period last year, according to a new report from Home Builders Research. Local builders pulled 1,793 permits in the first quarter, also nearly double last year's period. Moreover, the median sales price of new home closings in March was $227,081, up 13 percent from a year earlier. U.S. housing markets with the largest price jumps also were the hardest hit during the recession, including Las Vegas. However, many people are questioning how sustainable the increases are, Home Builders Research President Dennis Smith said in his report. He also noted that the valley's housing market is still plagued with problems. About 59 percent of local homeowners with mortgages were underwater — meaning their debt exceeded their home's value — at the end of 2012, according to Zillow. "The Las Vegas housing market is still VERY fragile," Smith wrote this week. "It is too early to suggest that we are out of the woods and on solid ground." | 1 3 M AY 2 0 1 3 20130513_VI11_F.indd 11 | By Joe Schoenmann staff writer A Las Vegas councilman wants to change a city code that forces developers to spend thousands to retrofit older buildings with energy-saving measures such as window glazing and insulation on cinder-block walls. Councilman Bob Beers has spent months working with city staff on the changes, he said, because he's received so many complaints from smallbusiness operators, many of them downtown. He added that the city's energy code, adopted in 2011, doesn't always comport with "common sense." "These codes are rewritten every three years and don't really get much of a hearing from legis- latures or city councils," Beers said. As an example, he said merchants in the relatively new Tivoli Village, 440 S. Rampart Blvd., expected to installed glazed windows. But the new code also required the windows to be tinted. Not only does window tinting hinder views of a store's merchandise, he said, but it blocks sunlight. "Some of these places never get sunshine, but the code says do it this way — even if it defies common sense." Another result of the code, he said, is a requirement for cinder block buildings to install 6 inches of insulation, which he said reduces the square footage of a building and can be costly. popular coffee shop has designs on downtown By Joe Schoenmann staff writer The rumors are true, but you'll have to wait. Sambalatte, a popular coffee shop near Rampart and Charleston boulevards, is definitely going to be open somewhere downtown, owner/operator Luiz Claudio Oliveira said. For lovers of his coffee, unfortunately, that won't be until 2014. Rumors have circulated for months that Oliveira wanted to open a place downtown. He's working to open a store on the Strip, and when that is finished, he says he will focus on downtown. "It's just a matter of time," he said. Meanwhile, a coffee spot is expected to open in the Downtown Container Park later this year. 11 5/9/13 2:18:10 PM