The Henderson City Council is one step closer to selling roughly 150 acres of land to developers who want to build a 2 million-square-foot industrial complex.
Council members Tuesday night voted to accept a purchase offer from South 15 Partners LLC for the desert property, which is located between Henderson Executive Airport and the M Resort. The development group offered to buy the land for $13.6 million, or $2.07 per square foot.
The money would go to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which transferred the land to the city in 2010 for free for economic development uses.
South 15 Partners is an entity managed by former homebuilder Terry Manley and M.J. Dean Construction founder Mike Dean. Through an affiliate, they already own 10 acres of land adjacent to the city property and are in escrow for another 10 acres, all of which are included in their 170-acre development.
Manley and Dean are working with Panattoni Development Co. partner Doug Roberts on the project, known as South15 Airport Center. They plan to construct 14 buildings totaling almost 2 million square feet, including a 300,000-square-foot FedEx distribution center.
The developers expect to break ground this spring and are offering “build-to-suit” facilities designed for tenants’ specific uses. They also would be willing to sell chunks of land so tenants can build their own facilities.
The project would be the first large-scale industrial development in the valley in years, and developers say it will employ roughly 2,900 people.
But finding tenants could prove difficult. The valley already has plenty of low-priced industrial buildings for rent, including many in Henderson.
Henderson has 12.7 million square feet of industrial space, nearly 13 percent of the valley’s total inventory. The city’s 9.7 percent industrial vacancy rate is better than the valley’s 12.3 percent rate, but its average asking rent of 42 cents a square foot is lower than the regional average of 47 cents, according to the brokerage firm CBRE Group.