Years after The Gramercy’s never-completed condominium tower imploded in front of cheering spectators, developers are pushing plans for more apartments in the mixed-use outpost.
Southern California real estate firms Lyon Living and LandSpire Group recently broke ground for The Highline, a 294-unit rental complex in The Gramercy, on Russell Road west of 215 Beltway in the southwestern Las Vegas Valley.
They expect to open the project in the winter of 2023, and amenities will include a rooftop lounge area, co-working space, and beer garden, according to a press release detailing future plans for 71 townhouses and 25,000 square feet encompass feet of retail.
All in all, the new round of construction marks the latest chapter in a suburban real estate company that already includes homes, offices, and retail space, and has a very Vegas history.
A product of the bubble era in the mid-2000s, the complex was abandoned after the market collapse and left unfinished behind barbed wire fences. Then it sold for cents on the dollar to investors who imploded one of its buildings, completed the others, and sold the building in pieces for more than $ 100 million combined.
Pete Zak, managing partner of Lyon, whose company acquired the two residential buildings and vacant lot from The Gramercy in 2018, said 97 percent of the existing living space was occupied.
Like other industries, the Las Vegas rental market has faced turmoil and questions after the outbreak of the pandemic. Many tenants used unemployment benefits, economic funds, or other aid programs to pay their rent, while casino-heavy southern Nevada saw huge job losses and government-ordered evictions began and stopped.
But many people also moved to the valley, including from more expensive markets, amid widespread work-from-home arrangements, and in southern Nevada there was sustained housing construction, rapidly rising rents, and vacancy rates becoming scarcer.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, we noticed a slowdown in rental prices, but that changed quickly,” Zak said in an email.
Developer Alex Edelstein envisioned ManhattanWest, as The Gramercy was originally called, with 20 acres of condominiums, restaurants, offices and a hotel. He reportedly bought the site in 2006 for about $ 30 million and broke ground in early 2007.
But the economy soon crashed, funding for ManhattanWest reportedly dried up, and Edelstein ceased construction in late 2008, leaving one of the many blocked construction sites in southern Nevada after the frenzied real estate market collapsed.
Edelstein sold the unfinished complex to The Krausz Companies and WGH Partners for $ 20 million in 2013 after allegedly spending $ 170 million on it.
The new owners changed their names and completed their two four-story apartment buildings and two four-story office and commercial buildings. They also decided the condo tower had to go.
Demolition teams wired the nine-story building with explosives and imploded it in February 2015. The Sunday morning spectacle attracted many onlookers, and guests were offered Bloody Marys and mimosas at a safe distance from the site of the explosion.
The landlords sold The Gramercy’s 187,000 square feet commercial buildings to The Koll Co. and Estein USA for $ 61.75 million in 2017. Lyon acquired its section the following year for $ 45.75 million and acquired 160 homes and 12.6 acres of land and parking.
Zak confirmed The Highline will take the footprint of the former condominium tower.
From big plans to a big flop and then to a big boom, the property is back in first place now as new construction gets underway once again.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.
