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In business downtown real estate CITY sells land at Symphony Park for assisted living center Developer buys Boulevard mall from lenders for $54.5 million By Conor Shine staff writer By Eli Segall staff writer The Boulevard mall, a once-thriving Las Vegas shopping hub that slid in popularity and financial health over the years, has been sold to local developer Roland Sansone. The $54.5 million deal closed last month. Brokers with CBRE Group, who listed the property this summer at a price of "best offer," announced the sale Dec. 2. The 1.2 million-square-foot mall sits on 75 acres of land, but the Sansone Cos. acquired 56 acres, or about 780,400 square feet of space. Retailers Sears and Macy's own their properties. Sansone wants more restaurants and some kind of entertainment venue at the mall, CBRE Senior Vice President Charles Moore said. He has plenty of space to fill. The mall, two miles east of the Strip, is 75 percent leased, Moore said. Its most notable vacancy is a two-level department store that was most re- Downtown's Symphony Park is getting a new tenant after the Las Vegas City Council approved a $5 million land sale to a real estate company planning to build a skilled nursing and assisted living center. Developers will spend the next two years building the facility, which is expected to include 116,000 square feet for skilled nursing and 146,000 square feet for an assisted living complex, retail shops and medical offices. Economic and Urban Development Director Bill Arent described the $71.3 million project as one of the largest downtown in recent years. The skilled nursing facility would be geared toward physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy, among other services, said Citra representative Michael Saltzman. The assisted living center would generally house patients for about 30 days at a time. Combined with retail and office space that will serve the broader downtown area, Saltzman said, the project follows a national trend in the medical industry where developers are clustering different types of services at a single location, creating a "continuum of care." The parcel sold for $5 million, and had been appraised as high as $11.5  million. Citra will receive a discount for some site improvements it will have to make before construction can begin, bringing the net sale price down to $3.5 million. The value of the property has more than doubled since a 2011 appraisal, a growth that may not be sustainable, Arent said. "I don't know if any builder would build in Symphony Park at those values that the appraiser determined," he said. The project is expected to generate $781,000 a year in property taxes, Arent said. cently occupied in 2008 by Dillard's. Sansone bought the mall from lenders who had acquired it in June from Rouse Properties of New York. The lenders took ownership through a "deed in lieu of foreclosure," a process that lets them acquire a property weighed down by debt while avoiding the lengthy foreclosure process. As Moore sees it, the mall now is in "good hands," as Sansone is an experienced developer who will pump much-needed energy and money into the property. Developed in the 1960s by Irwin Molasky and Merv Adelson, Boulevard mall was hugely popular through the 1970s but eventually lost its standing with shoppers, who fled for the suburbs and Fashion Show mall, which opened in 1981. The valley's retail vacancy rate is currently 9 percent, according to Colliers International, far below Boulevard's 25 percent. Las Vegas' No.1 Business Resource Has Never Been More Important. VEGASINC.com named "Best Website in Class" by the Nevada Press Association 2013 Get your one-year subscription to and we'll include our best leads via email. All for only $50 a year. VEGASINC.COM/SUBSCRIBE For additional information call 800.254.2610 or email subscriptions@gmgvegas.com 12 20131223_VI12_F.indd 12 | 23 DECEMBER 2013 | 12/18/13 3:53:58 PM

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