Las Vegas is seeing one of the largest industrial booms in the nation

North Las Vegas definitely falls within that “Goldilocks zone” when it comes to the industrial space, one of the biggest developers in the area said.

“You’ve got great freeway access with the I-15 going through and the 93 and 215 (Beltway) in close proximity, it’s kind of the crux of everywhere coming together,” said Lisa Brady, who is the market officer for Las Vegas for Prologis, one of the largest logistics real estate companies in the world.

“And then you have access to labor, a great partnership with the city of North Las Vegas, they’re very easy to do business with, easy to develop land within, and there are only so many large swaths of land left in the valley, so this is the natural progression.”

Prologis is one of a number of commercial real estate companies building in North Las Vegas, including at Apex Industrial Park. The company currently has 7.6 million square feet spread over 27 buildings and 50 tenants within North Las Vegas.

North Las Vegas’ long simmering industrial boom has finally taken off, and now the city is helping the valley diversify its way from casinos and tourism.

The Las Vegas Valley comes in at No. 7 in the nation for the largest industrial expansion compared to its current stock since the start of the year, according to Commercial Search’s mid-year industrial report. The construction pipeline has jumped 4.6 percent at the end of June.

North Las Vegas also had the third and fifth largest industrial projects in the nation completed in the first half of 2024, according to the report. North Las Vegas Logistics Center, developed by NorthPoint Development, spans over 2 million square feet over two buildings and Vantage North, developed by VanTrust Real Estate, is 1.7 million square feet.

North Las Vegas spokesperson Gregory Bortolin said one of the key drivers towards the city’s rebirth and new identity as an industrial powerhouse is cutting red tape and streamlining government bureaucracy.

“North Las Vegas does entitlements, which is zoning, in less than 90 days across the board,” he said. “In fact, after your entitlements are complete we have our self-certification program which gets you a permit in four days. Historically, each one of these projects can take between two and six months of reviews and permits, therefore based on permits received, we estimate that the self-certification program has saved the development community over 30 years of waiting for their permits annually.”

From bust to boom

When John Lee became mayor of North Las Vegas in 2013, he was staring at a massive challenge. The city was dealing with a projected seven-year, $152.6 million deficit and potential receivership.

Jared Luke, senior director of government affairs and economic development for the city of North Las Vegas, said Lee sat down with private sector stakeholders and asked a simple question.

“What are our underleveraged assets in the city?”

Luke said Lee and his counterparts then drew circles around the assets in what has become commonly known as the “Star Map” within the walls of North Las Vegas’ city building. Next, Luke said Lee took a very specific outlook on how to recoup money the city so desperately needed.

“We can either tax existing businesses, we can tax existing residents, and that’s typically what government would do, or we can create a new tax base,” he said. “And so one of the big stars was Apex, and it really started with the Speedway Industrial Area and we used that as a small sample set once utilities got out to the area. And within six months to a year, most of the land out there was spoken for, and within a few years it was fully developed.”

Luke said the city then took that sample size and applied it to the 18,000 acres at what is now Apex Industrial Park. One of the key verticals primed for expansion at that time, he said, was the commercial sectors of logistics, industrial big box and light manufacturing.

North Las Vegas’ population boomed in response, as its grown by 25% to more than 282,000 people since 2013 and its annual budget has increased by roughly 138% to approximately $1.03 billion, according to data provided by the city.

The number of active businesses has also grown substantially (34.5%) to about 7,242 and the city has approximately 68.3 million square feet of developed industrial land and 7.2 million square feet of retail. Apex also has another 24 million square feet of industrial space planned.

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