NLV city manager discusses impact of Apex, reshaping downtown

Ryann Juden has a vision for North Las Vegas — a thriving economy, a diverse downtown, new jobs and much more.

But Juden, the North Las Vegas city manager for the past six months, says it’s not a one-person task. He raves about others who work in the city and can’t hide his enthusiasm for the work in front of them.

The results, he says, are encouraging. For instance, North Las Vegas has gone from being strapped by the recession about eight years ago to having its credit rating boosted in Standard & Poor’s annual review. The independent analysis of city finances resulted in a twospot increase in its credit rating, which could lead to it collecting millions in annual investments and tax cuts.

“There’s a lot more to the success of North Las Vegas when you really start to look into it, and it’s exciting. It’s exciting to be a part of it,” he said.

Juden shared his vision with the Sun. The interview has been edited for clarity.

How has the city staff adjusted to the change in power?

Yes, we had some issues in North Las Vegas; they’re all gone. We have an incredible team — it’s exciting, actually, to see what they’ve been able to accomplish and to be able to work with them to accomplish new things. It’s not as rough as people think, because I’ve been there for five years ... I don’t think there’s much to get used to — I’m not a new face.

Electric car maker Faraday Future once had plans to invest more than $1 billion in a 3.4 million-square-foot manufacturing plant at Apex Industrial Park, but it ran into financial troubles and pulled out of the project earlier this year. What impact did Faraday have on North Las Vegas?

Faraday is misunderstood by a lot of people. For our purposes and the city of North Las Vegas, Faraday was nothing more than a catalyst to bring utilities out to Apex. What Faraday did for North Las Vegas was by buying land at the furthest northern end of Apex ... then all the utilities would have to be pulled up to them, which would open thousands of acres of land to the east and west of that utility corridor.

What progress is happening with business development at Apex?

Apex has been a challenge that no one’s been able to figure out for almost two decades. We’ve talked about it being a chicken and an egg. You want businesses to go out there, but they want utilities. And utilities don’t want to go out there unless you have businesses.

Since I came in as city manager, we’ve looked at it through a magnifying glass and looked at the challenges we’ve had,