Two Las Vegas developers have resumed construction on an office project they submitted after the pandemic broke out.
The crews are digging trenches, building rebar cages, and doing other work for Narrative, which is located south of the 215 bypass between Durango and Buffalo Drive in the southwest, Frank Marretti, founder of G2 Capital Development, told the review journal.
The four-story building’s “vertical tilt” is expected in late February or early March, and the first tenants are expected to move into the roughly $ 40 million project in December 2022, said Marretti, who is with LaPour Partners founder Jeff LaPour, developed.
Construction resumed about two weeks ago, after being suspended for about 16 to 17 months, according to Marretti.
Employers closed offices around the world over the past year over fears of the coronavirus outbreak, sparking discussions about how much space companies really needed when their employees were working from their couch, kitchen table, or home office.
Many people still work from home, despite developers pushing new office projects in Las Vegas, particularly in the Southwest, and employers renting space.
LaPour said this week he wasn’t worried that office work “would never come back; I concentrated more on the ‘when’. “
He said demand for space is strong, noting that Narrative, which is slated to grow just over 100,000 square feet, has already won two tenants who will rent about half of the complex.
Commercial real estate agent Colliers International occupies 14,000 square feet and hospitality software company Agilysys has leased 37,000 square feet, LaPour said.
The change from Colliers to Narrative was announced in the summer of 2019. Efforts to get comments from Agilysys on Thursday were unsuccessful.
LaPour and Marretti unveiled narratives plans in mid-2019 and announced in February 2020 that they had broken ground for the project, which sits next to the headquarters of credit card issuer Credit One Bank.
Over the next month, Las Vegas was quickly closed for fear of the coronavirus outbreak.
Narrative wasn’t the only real estate project in southern Nevada to stall or otherwise delay after the pandemic wreaked havoc and devastated the economy.
Today, developers are not the only ones who are betting that employers want their employees in offices too.
Matter Real Estate Group is developing UnCommons, a 40-acre mixed-use project near Narrative that will include more than 500,000 square feet of office space.
Also in the southwest, Sansone Companies is developing a glass and steel office complex called Axiom, and developer Joe Sorge is building Evora, a 42-acre mixed-use company that will require 240,000 square feet of office and other commercial space.
Summerlin developer Howard Hughes Corp. is building a ten-story office building next to the Las Vegas Ballpark.
In total, the valley recorded more than 1.5 million square feet of office lettings through September this year, brokerage firm CBRE Group reported.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.
