You never see what you’re not looking for; look and see what you’re missing

The Diamonds are found in the rough!

Al Balloqui,
Community Business Development

Just 45 minutes drive past a picturesque, often snow-capped mountain, from the number one resort destination in the world, (Las Vegas) is the “Kingdom of Nye”. The Pahrump Valley is the largest and fastest growing town in Nye County.
The 367 square miles of valley is referred to by locals as “BOW”.  
“B” is for the big Blue sky, claiming to have over 215 days of clear sunny skies, second only to Tucson, Az.
“O” is for the wide Open space community; where most homes sit on acre plus lots, with a 360 degrees view of intriguing desert mountains. Flanked on the East by the snow- capped Spring Mountains Pahrump has Mt. Charleston the second highest peak in Nevada.  
“W” is for all the Wild rides you can take in your ATV across the vast dry lake bed, which lies just South of the town; racing high performance machine; riding your horse on the thousands of acres of mountain trails; to just sliding down one of the numerous mountain water falls. Remember to hold on!          

The Pahrump Valley is a place where generations of families have come to feel nature’s silence. Las Vegas’s neon reflection is no rivalry to the millions of twinkling stars in the night sky over Pahrump.
 
Why come to Pahrump? The answer is in the name, which means “water from a rock.”
It is a paradise surrounded by mountains, with sweet water from the numerous artesian wells, making it an oasis in the desert. Pahrump has it all; Southwestern Nevada’s alter ego to Las Vegas. Realize the American Dream, and live on a mini-ranch in rural America, you can have it all and it is only a short drive to the world’s playground of Las Vegas. Las Vegas, like the Land of Oz, is great; but there is no place like home.

Pahrump once a sleepy bedroom community to Las Vegas is becoming a challenging economic alternative to the big city. Pahrump is still flying under the radar, but the secret is getting out. This is evident with all the planned economic development going on in the valley.  

Two long traditions have established roots in Pahrump, recreational vehicles & rodeo.
Historically, Pahrump has been a favorite ‘snowbirds’ location. Presently two of the country’s Top Ten RV resorts are located in the valley, anchoring the North & South.
Nevada Treasure Luxury Resort hosts 202 Luxury Motor Coach lots for rent or sale, with mega lots priced at $83,000 to $200,000 each. Resort has a convention center, bowling alley, first- class gym & health spa, beautiful pool, and many more exceptional amenities including restaurant which leaves little to want for.
In the south side of the valley is Terrible’s Lakeside Casino Resort, with 30 acres of landscaped R.V. pads surrounding a majestic lake with mountain views.  It is anchored with an amphitheater and club house for the 159 occupants.  
A Third R.V. Park is Charleston Peak RV Resort with 275 sites adjunct to Pahrump’s popular “Symphony’s Restaurant” at the Pahrump Valley Winery and Vineyard with heliport landing pad.
These 1,024 total RV spaces will be eclipsed by an additional 1,650 new spaces surrounding a proposed 27 hole golf course on 240 acre and recreational convention center. This is under review and being planned for construction.  This area is bordered by future 200 plus acre housing development. These new developments will be part of the extensive mountain trail (Hiking, Horse & ATV) system being established to open the Spring Mountains wonderland to public use.

Just over a mile south along Highway 160 is the planned 427 acre Pahrump Arts Recreation Complex (PARC) site.  The formation of Pahrump Alliance Valley Economic Development (P.A.V.E.D.), the Town’s exclusive Economic Development Organization, has resulted in immediate success. P.A.V.E.D.’s dedicated, experienced directors initially spearheaded the resurrection of the PARC project. This project could create over 500 jobs over the next five years.  PARC will be major launching area into the Spring Mountain wonderland. Engineering for construction of roads and basic infrastructure has begun, marking the commencement of this master planned complex. PARC has 4 anchor facilities which are projected to attract over 2.25 million visitors during the first 3 years.

First Anchor “Western Heritage Town & Aquatic Complex”
The Economic Feasibility Study completed by Leisure and Recreation Concepts Inc (LARC) supported the viability of Western Heritage Town and Water Park should attract almost 350,000 visitors during first year of operation. Additional indoor/outdoor water facility would increase visitor’s attendance substantially. The Western Town will contain several amusement rides not found anywhere else, and is designed for professional movie filming. 

Second Anchor “Performing Arts Theater & National Museum”
Still in the design stage for a 2,500 seated indoor & amphitheater will highlight PARC’s one mile of frontage along Highway 160. This will be a building so unique that its exquisiteness will seduce one to stop and admire the elegance. It will be joined with a one of a kind nationally treasured museum. This stunning facility will be a regional central point for cultural expansion; from ballet to modern music, bringing affordable Broadway quality shows for families to enjoy. We will look for cooperation with Great Basin College in establishing an educational theatrical curriculum, to support the Theater and its operations.
Great Basin College is committed to filling the community’s needs in all related areas of study. This also extends to the next anchor PARC-Field of Dreams Sport Village (FDSV)

Third Anchor “Field of Dreams Sports Village”
This concept is modeled after the Cooperstown Field of Dreams Baseball Camp in Cooperstown New York, home of Baseball’s Hall of Fame. The Sports Village’s main focus is on Tournament play and athletic educational training.  There will be 20 baseball fields; 12 regulation & 8 little-league size, with two premium grandstands. Basketball, Tennis, Soccer and Volleyball camps, among other sports, will alternate operation year round. The campus village is designed with full service cafeteria, game room, clinic and 24- hour security in a fenced area.
It will initially serve 72 teams with expansion to 96 teams and accommodate up to 1530 players and coaches. It is common that for every two ball players, there are three additional spectators arriving, to support the team members. Viewing of the games is free. Combined out of town player/visitor attendance is projected at 150,000 during the first full year of operation.

Fourth Anchor is an “Equestrian Center Rodeo/Arena”
The heart of Nevada’s Heritage is found in the relationship of the cowboy & his horse. The seventy five acre plus, indoor/outdoor facility will follow a steep tradition in Nevada.
The master plan equestrian center will provide a much needed alternative to the heavily priced and fully booked, existing local (area) facilities. If you combine the location, which is next to the launching area to the Spring Mountain wonderland and the close proximity to Las Vegas & Los Angeles, the formula is phenomenal. The equestrian center creates a potential revenue draw to the community and unprecedented attendance. Complimenting the Equestrian Center is an additional 1,500 acre plus, Last Chance Park, with riding trails on the northwest side of Town.    

Numerous smaller venues speckle PARC. Convention/exhibits center, 11 acre extreme sports track center, paddle pond with lazy river walk lined with memorial trees, pet area rest stop, all adjacent to park & ride area connecting Las Vegas public transportation/Airport to Pahrump. This will tie in to the bus routes locally planned for operation by the middle of 2009. All activities uniformly and neatly connected in design to create maximum attractiveness.

As the various planned venues come on line, it is projected that lodging demand will exceed 1,800 additional rooms. Pahrump presently hosts only three major lodging facilities accounting for paltry 325 rooms. Plans for more rooms are on the drawing board with Golden Gaming, who just completed a $1 million renovation of their rooms, and announced a $10 million, state-of-the-art sound and digital projected eight theater expansion of 1,300 seats. With regional consumer draw of over 80,000 this decision will prove to be very successful.

Four new hotels are going through the building entitlement process.
A 200 plus room hotel will be directly across from PARC, bordering Spring Mountain Motorsport Ranch. The Motorsport Ranch is over 200 acres of professional performance track for those who enjoy an adrenaline rush in their own High Speed Racing Vehicle. You can enjoy Corvette advance driving, or a Lotus performance school, Radical Racing Schools just to mention 3 attractions. Nationally recognized by major auto makers and racing enthusiasts.

All of these quality-of-life attractions are complimented by over 24,000 new home sites engineered to be built south of the PARC Project. The high quality of life, entices high quality business. Mountain Falls Residential Development of over 5,000 homes is worth mentioning due to its close proximity also to PARC. It has a superior golf course, fed by natural artesian wells that the Town is named after.

Pahrump has continued to draw business, even during this current economic down turn. The PAVED team has additionally attracted what is called bread & butter companies, aiding companies like Sun State Components of Nevada to bring in 55/65 jobs, and Ganix Bio-Technologies, Inc., approx.90 jobs (explained below), for examples.

PAVED assisted Beau Dempsey Senior Biologist Operation Officer for Ganix Bio-Technologies, for several months in the zoning & permit processes. Ganix has begun construction of its flag ship operations & training facility in Pahrump. Ganix has perfected the technology to grow salt water shrimp in the desert. After five years of research & development in North Dakota, Ganix has commenced building an environmentally-controlled facility, which maximizes green energy standards to include zero water discharge. The facility will use less water than a single family home producing 1.5 million pounds of shrimp, just 50 minutes away from their targeted point of consumption in Las Vegas. The implementation of this revolutionary technology will eliminate the foods carbon foot print (I.E. Miles transported being air, sea or road) almost completely. The four, 50,000 sq ft independent units will grow 6 million pounds shrimp annually employing between 80/100 locals, while acting as training center for expansion plans throughout the country.

Pahrump’s close proximity to Las Vegas and central location between Los Angles, Salt Lake City and Phoenix, coupled with Nevada’s attractive tax policy and moderate climate, make Pahrump the place to be. Several indoor environmentally controlled food organizations are in the planning stages of locating to Pahrump; from organically grown vegetables to popular Australian Barramundi fish.

At first glance it appears Pahrump attracts unique types of industry. Once again, as we all know, it is about location, climate and superior quality of life.

The FAA has committed $15 million to the first of five stages for the construction of the Pahrump General Aviation Airport. North Las Vegas’s General Aviation airport is the third busiest airport in the country for its size, along with the Henderson airport operating at almost capacity; the FAA views Pahrump’s Regional Airport as the likely solution to general aviations over crowding dilemma.
The airport vicinity on southwestern location, will consume 2,500 acres with proposed 5,000 acre buffer zone. The actual airport will encompass 500 acres, with remaining 2,000 acres available for aviation support industries, providing financial contribution to operations.

The economic possibilities are limitless. This became evident with a new aviation company taking residence in Pahrump.
The company’s two point plan is the manufacturing of a special unmanned airship. The airship accomplishes a multitude of vital government & commercial uses. The second is to establish a cooperative agreement with Great Basin College & FAA to provide the only flight school of its kind in the country. Pahrump’s close proximity to the Nevada Test Site & ideal climate makes the union fit like a glove.

One of Nevada’s greatest natural resources is the sun. Stated earlier being the second sunniest community in the country, makes Pahrump/Nye County, the ideal location for renewable energy. This has become factually apparent by the swarm of Solar Companies seeking to purchase & lease large tracts of land.

Recently at an energy conference Nevada’s US Senator Harry Reid addressed this fact by encouraging development in Nevada. It has been calculated that a six-square mile area in Nye County is capable of generating sufficient renewable solar power to service the entire southwestern United States. The Nevada Governor, Jim Gibbons, stated that presently Nevada imports $30 billion in energy each year. It is his vision for Nevada to develop its natural resources and become an exporter of energy, especially, harnessed renewable electrical energy to its energy-hungry neighbor California. Presently PAVED is involved with negotiations of a 12,000 acre parcel of land for solar development south of Pahrump. This project coupled with a natural gas power plant would benefit the entire nation. Presently, the largest solar operation in United States exists on 600 acres (total site is 800 acres) in Eldorado Valley just south of Boulder City. The cost of energy averages 10.9cts kw in Southern Nevada and 12.9cts kw in California, a 20% increase.

The US Federal Government is equally in the race to call Pahrump home, due to its being a short distance from Las Vegas, the fastest growing city for the last ten years. PAVED was successful in negotiating for Pahrump to have two of the three selected sites in the final round of determination for a new Federal Detention Center. On May 16 2008 the contract was awarded to Pahrump. This $80/$100 million facility will be used to detain individuals awaiting arraignment or trial in Federal Court. Being a federal facility requires the 230 employees to be paid at federal prevailing wage ($52,000 base). This is an excellent step forward in Economic Development for Pahrump.
 
It warrants mentioning the potential licensing of Yucca Mountain in summer 2009. (Yucca Mountain is the designated storage site for the nations used nuclear waste).  Pahrump may or may not become the closest full service community to the Yucca Mountain operation which will swell the population and benefit of the billions of dollars in economic impact during the initial build-out. Either way Pahrump has reaped the benefit of compiling one of the largest brain banks (I.E. intellectual & educated semi-retirees and retirees) making it a hot bed for technology companies to locate.

Three sizable commercial developments are under construction. Most recognized is the Home Depot store & shopping center (200,000 sq ft), at Highway 160 and Basin Ave which opened summer 2008. Just southeast, of this is Heritage Park, which turned dirt for a regional shopping area and restaurant in 2008. Between the two is CP Business Park, a planned 300,000 sq-ft-plus 20 acre commercial/industrial site development. Buildings & pad site will be available for relocating companies by summer 2009.

Equally important to what is going on in the community is what the future plans hold. The following projects are just a few of the 21 items on the drawing board that were presented last year (2007) in the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategic Document. (CEDS), which was filed with the State of Nevada & Federal Economic Development Agency. The accepted filing qualifies the projects for an expansive array of State/Federal funding and grants. Following are just a sample listed in priority of importance, with likelihood to be financed and achieved in the near future.

The Economic Corridor (EC) is a key artery that will provide the single most significant economic impact for all of Nye County and State of Nevada. The proposed benefits garner the support of just about every state and federal agency from NDOT to DOE. The EC will connect with several key elements. First being Interstate-15 and Union Pacific Railroad meeting at the cross connection with Kerns River natural gas pipeline, which is a short distance from the planned-development of Ivanpah Airport located near Jean/Primm, Nevada, on the Nevada/California state line. This road/rail/utility service (natural gas, propone and electrical transmission lines) would provide the easement to transmit renewable energy from southern to northern Nevada along the state’s western border. This will provide the solar-rich southern Nye County area with the ability to distribute renewable energy, not just throughout Nevada, but to export to California. (Presently there is a 12,000 acre proposal for a solar plant and business/industrial center in southern Nye County close to Pahrump and Las Vegas.) This EC would run through Sandy Valley along a previously proposed route connecting through southern Pahrump, Amargosa and Beatty to the Yucca Mountain and Nevada Test Sites. The EC entry into the southern most part of Pahrump is ideally positioned to accommodate the proposed 20,000 plus home sites providing a direct user for natural gas and renewable energy. When the EC continues to Tonopah and Hawthorne this would open commerce to flow to Carson City, Reno and Sparks. This impressive north/south commerce right-of-way would connect I-80 to I-40 and service the ever increasing mining activity in Nevada. It is not just about relieving traffic congestion from California into Las Vegas. It would stimulate economic growth along the entire western mineral/energy rich rural Nevada area. It is a bold plan with bolder positive impact for Nevada and National Security.

Fiber optics & broadband service could easily be incorporated in the above mentioned EC. There are plans to begin establishing the infrastructure to develop it immediately. It would greatly aid in many areas of vital importance to the community. Specifically targeted improvements are public safety, hospital services, emergency services and educational services for the community college and school board. The majority of the cost is projected to be carried by private industry usage.
The fiber optics/broadband development is key in connecting the valley’s three projected business parks. The north edge of the valley along Parque Ave seats a potential 800 acre industrial park. This site is divided by Highway 160 and the entire length is bordered by a proposed northern beltway. This area would be ideal to service the Test Site & Yucca Mountains needs.
 
Centrally located is the proposed commercial manufacturing business enterprise zone. This 640 acres site would also lie along the eastern beltway. The mentioned CP Business Park is located in this area in addition to a 100 acre proposed Free Trade Zone site. The third site is the 2,000 acre Technology Development Park proposed around the Regional Airport. This area’s primary focus is aviation-related industry and science.
In cooperation with the BLM, land has been set aside for three unique projects. First site is 280 acres for construction of a Great Basin College Campus is located on the south eastern area of Pahrump. The two additional sites are located at opposite areas in the Valley consuming 320 & 640 acres. Both are designed for mix of affordable housing for young families and those on fixed incomes. This project is a group effort of BLM, HUD Pahrump and PAVED.  

PAVED has recently rolled out a 5 year Strategic Initiative called “PAVING FORWARD.”  The plan addresses a public/private investment of $6 Million in seed investment to accomplish many of the above mention objectives creating a $380 Million Economic Impact. It seeks to develop over 1,650 new jobs and planned growth strategy increasing the population base by 10%. It has become evident that companies are locating where quality of life is exceptional because that is where the talented workforce are attracted. As Pahrumps brain bank continues to grow, quality companies will come.

There are numerous other projects and developments worthy of mention that have been omitted for the sake of brevity. Bill Gates was once asked by the later David Brinkley; “What single factor would he contribute to Microsoft success” Bill replied with being at the right place at the right time. Pahrump is the right place for best quality life in America and the time is Now!

Should you have questions and wish to participate in this exceptional opportunity in what will soon be a model community please contact PAVED.