New federal law cuts red tape for future growth at Apex

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto visits the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas. It is expected to bring thousands of job opportunities to Las Vegas Valley residents. The construction site is made up of various warehouses across 7,000 acres, including a 885,000-square-foot Smith's distribution center currently under construction. Wednesday, July 5, 2023. Brian Ramos Photo by: Brian Ramos

Management of the 18,000 acres making up the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas has changed hands multiple times over the last few decades, muddying the local permitting process and stalling potential new development.

North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown previously described yearslong waits for the Bureau of Land Management to sign off on requests to build roads and extend basic utilities to the industrial park. But recently passed legislation championed by U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto,and Rep. Steven Horsford, both D-Nev., should streamline the process.

On Monday, both representatives joined Goynes-Brown to celebrate the new law, which President Donald Trump signed last month.The three elected officials highlighted the number of jobs that would come out of the technical change in a state among the nation’s leaders in unemployment.

“For years, the Apex industrial site has represented both opportunity and missed opportunity,” Horsford said. “The site didn’t just lack critical infrastructure, we lacked the autonomy or the ability to fix it … It’s literally day one of brand new opportunities.”

The legislation gives the city of North Las Vegas and the Apex Industrial Park Owners Association further authority to issue utility and infrastructure-related permits without dealing with the federal government’s delays, Cortez Masto said.

Adding to that, Horsford said, North Las Vegas knows what investments are needed to grow the area’s economy better than the federal government.

On top of the eight million square feet of industrial space already constructed, Goynes-Brown said 32 million square feet are in the “pipeline” for Apex. The mayor said filling that land with businesses is projected to bring in 32,000 full-time jobs, with average annual wages paying around $67,000 a year.

“Nearly 90% of Clark County is federally managed land, which makes Apex one of the few places in the region where large-scale economic development can (readily) happen,” Goynes-Brown said. “This is about more than building square footage. It’s about career paths for our residents.”

Apex’s growth is also getting a boost from public utilities: NV Energy is building five new substations and the Southern Nevada Water Authority is investing $850 million while “public and private partners” contribute $59 million for additional water lines to Apex, the mayor said.

“The only thing that was holding this site up at one time was government red tape that no longer exists. That’s what we’re here to celebrate,” Cortez Masto said. “This is a great example of how we come together, work together, to knock down some of these barriers.”

And while environmentalists are consistently concerned about the region’s urban sprawl, to which the Apex site contributes, Goynes-Brownsaid environmental protections for the area were not changed by Horsford and Cortez Masto’s legislation.

Lisa Cole, a local Republican assemblymember representing the Apex Industrial Park Owners Association, said the next step was to work with the city to identify areas that don’t have roadways and utilities “quite in place.”

That’s largely going to be in the northernmost section of the industrial park, she said.

“We’re already working with the city and their staff to find that perfect application process and to work with (BLM’s) local office to submit the application, make it happen and get more development happening faster than ever before,” Cole said.