Is Vegas finally ready to end its tower drought?

Several projects have received approvals

Las Vegas’ housing market is getting plenty of construction, with subdivisions and sprawling apartment complexes opening around the valley.

Now, some investors are looking to build higher.

At least four towering apartment projects in Las Vegas, comprising almost 1,400 units total, have received city approvals since last summer.

Downtown 57 calls for two 15-story towers, one at Maryland Parkway and Lewis Avenue and another nearby at Lewis and 11th Street. There’s also the 18-story Avante Lofts at Hoover Avenue and Sixth Street, the 15-story Thunderbird Lofts on Las Vegas Boulevard just south of Charleston Boulevard and The Midtown-downtown Project, which calls for 12- and 14-story buildings at Casino Center Boulevard and Hoover.

Allofthemplantohavecommercial space for eateries or other businesses, as well.

The projects have not broken ground yet, and there’s no guarantee that all, or any, of them will get built. But if even one comes out of the ground, it would be the first new residential high-rise in Las Vegas in several years.

The proposals come amid rising rents, shrinking vacancies and an apartment-construction boom that has been heavily concentrated in the suburbs. High-rises are far more expensive to build than the typical rental project in town — a sprawling collection of small buildings with surface parking lots — and developers haven’t constructed any towers lately because they can’t fetch highenough rents to turn a profit, real estate pros say.

TOWERS

And the penthouse market in Las Vegas is still healing, according to Tomlinson.

“The prices are still not fully back to where they were in 2008,” she said. “They dropped so significantly, they’re still on the rebound.”

Rebounding demand

But things are looking up. With more professional athletes coming to Las Vegas and billions of dollars worth of development on the Strip, Tomlinson said she’s seeing a demand for penthouses increase.

Kristen Routh-silberman, a realtor at Synergy Sotheby’s International Realty, has been seeing the same trends.

According to Synergy Sotheby’s Internationalrealty’sstateofthe market report, high rise units in Las Vegassawa6.6percentgrowthin units sold between May 2016 and May 2017.

Routh-silberman said she expects that growth to continue.

“We’re seeing a lot of activity in high rise where it hasn’t been that way for the past couple years,” she said.

Routh-silberman said Synergy Sotheby’s International Realty’s penthouse listings usually stick to a $2.5 million to $5.5 million price range, although they have listed “mega penthouses”thatcanhaveapriceof up to $8 million.

“At that top range, properties tend to sit on the market longer,” Routh-silberman said. “It’s definitelyatop1percentofthemarket (buying those listings), the numbers (of buyers) just aren’t there.”

Routh-silberman said the luxury market’s peak selling times are near the beginning of football season or the Chinese new year. These reflect the typical high rise clients: young bachelors and international buyers.

“A high rise isn’t a mom and dad and four kids,” Routh-silberman said. “A high rise tends to be a jet set playboy, someone single with multiple properties … It’s either before the family or empty nesters.”

Plenty of luxury features

This means most penthouses tend to have fewer bedrooms, Routh-silberman said. But what they lack in rooms is made up for in luxurious features.

“Penthouses typically have higher ceilings, more amenities, bigger balconies, spas or pools on decks, floor to ceiling windows,” Routh-silberman said. Many of the penthouses she sees also have extravagant features like theaters, fingerprint recognition technology and water features.

Tomlinson said many of her buyers are California natives looking to escape rising taxes or purchase a second home nearby. International buyers are also attracted to the Nevada housing market, Tomlin said.

“The demand for high rises has gone up in recent years,” she said. “Five to 10 years ago, that wasn’t the case as much.”

In turn, the penthouse inventory in Las Vegas has been on the decline. Synergy Sotheby’s International Realty’s state of the market report showed that the month’s supply of inventory is down 48.8 percent between May of 2016 and May of 2017.

“We don’t have any new projects on the market. I don’t know of anything that under construction right now,” Routh-silberman said.

That low inventory means the market is in its prime time for selling.

“You’ve got a better chance of selling than you ever had before for the past two years,” Routh-silberman said. “The next three years look like good market indicators for Vegas.”

Contact Bailey Schulz at bschulz@ reviewjournal.com or (702)383-0256. Follow @bailey_schulz on Twitter.