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Las Vegas land is priced by location and zoning, which means where and how much and under what terms a builder can build a product, be it a high-rise condo tower on the Strip or a mixed- use community in West Las Vegas, say near the 215. The zoning influences how much a builder can build, what kind of set-backs the building should have and how many parking spaces per 1000 square foot of the building are required.

In 2004, Clark County and the City of Las Vegas came up with overlay zonings of H1 and MUD1, H2, MUD2 etc. These zonings theoretically may entitle the builder to build a casino or high density residential, like high rise or residential with commercial on the first floor (mixed use). The reason I said it may theoretically entitle the builder is that even if all conditions are met, the application may still be denied because the neighborhood residents are opposed to it.

The only problem that came out of these overlay zonings is that they cover significant areas of Las Vegas and every one whose land is located in these overlay zonings thinks that his/her land is suited for such buildings and prices the parcel accordingly.

To give you an idea, H1 and MUD1 cover both sides of the Strip ( Las Vegas Boulevard) from Sahara To Russell, North To South and from Valley View to Sierra Vista  on the West and East side. This area is larger than 8 square miles or 5100 acres. I am not even going to discuss the south Las Vegas Boulevard overlay zoning that stretches from Warm Springs on the north to south Saint Rose and covers both sides of the Strip (probably another 3500 acres), and other lower density overlay zonings that cover Boulder Highway and Blue Diamond.

Single Las Vegas high rise projects usually use less than 5 acres, so we have in Las Vegas about 1700 high rise or mid rise condo projects and mixed use communities like The District in Henderson although The District is built up on a much larger parcel.

Now you can see the fallacy in pricing a parcel of land based on the zoning and not the practicality of the project. Good Lord, if we wanted to build 1700 towers in Las Vegas we would have to forcibly move all the population of Singapore and Hong Kong here and we would have high-rise towers to spare.

Some of these MUD1 zoned land are in industrial parts of Las Vegas or have an existing industrial building, who would want to build a high-rise in the middle of an industrial project.