Home builder Standard Pacific Corp. today announced that the company and its partner, Olympia Group, won a bid for 2,675 acres of land in North Vegas at a U.S. Bureau of Land Management auction held Nov. 16.
Olympia Group will serve as a master developer for a planned community in which 12,000 to 14,000 single-family homes, town houses and apartments are planned. The development will also include shopping, parks, schools and other amenities, Standard Pacific announced. Other partners in the planned project include American West Homes, Astoria Homes and D.R. Horton.
The development group reportedly paid $639 million for the land, or about $238,879 per acre.
The federal land auctions have drawn a lot of interest from land speculators and developers, as new construction has gobbled up available land around the Las Vegas metropolitan area at a feverish pace, and much of the remaining vacant property in the region is owned by the government. The Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper reported that the BLM sold a total of 2,982 acres for $791.3 million under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act at the auction, including one five-acre piece of land fronting Las Vegas Boulevard that sold for more than $2 million per acre.
Gary Cavender, president of Standard Pacific’s Las Vegas division, stated in the announcement, “We are extremely pleased to be involved with this project. We have teamed with four other companies who are each well established in the Las Vegas market. Additionally, we paid a fair price for the property, which is 20 percent less than the previous BLM land sale in February.”
Construction on the Olympia Group community is expected to begin in late 2007, and to continue over a six- to eight-year period, Standard Pacific reported. The partnership includes an up-front agreement from D.R. Horton to purchase 20 percent of the lots.
Kathy Wade, Standard Pacific’s southwest regional president, said in a statement, “This significant land acquisition provides us with a strong foothold in the Las Vegas market, and firmly establishes our start-up operations there. It also supports our long-term strategy to deliberately expand our presence in Las Vegas, one of the largest and most dynamic markets in the country.”
Standard Pacific, which has built homes for more than 80,000 families during its 39-year history, has operations in major metropolitan areas in California, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Nevada. The Company provides mortgage financing and title services to its home buyers through its subsidiaries and joint ventures, Family Lending Services, WRT Financial, Westfield Home Mortgage, Home First Funding, Universal Land Title of South Florida and SPH Title.
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