By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
Black smoke and ear-splitting engine noise issued from a large Caterpillar generator at the Coyote Springs golf course on Wednesday, August 22. Then suddenly, with a flip of a switch, the huge yellow box fell silent.
“We are now on institutional power!” announced Coyote Springs co-owner and developer Albert Seeno Jr..
To that statement there was applause from the small gathering of media, local government representatives and Coyote Springs officials who were in attendance to witness the event.
The golf course, which is currently the only existing feature at Coyote Springs, has been powered by two large diesel generator for more than six years now.
But last week, the developer, in cooperation with representatives from the Lincoln County Power District #1, also energized the Bill Orr electrical substation which is an essential piece of infrastructure that will now provide power to the Coyote Springs Golf Course. This allowed the development to begin purchasing its power from the regional grid.
Of course, if the developer has its way, all of this is just the beginning. Wednesday’s event also marked an important first step forward for the long-stalled Coyote Springs development project.
The idea for Coyote Springs was originally envisioned back as far as 1998, when the region was in the midst of a real estate boom. The ambitious project was originally led by Nevada lobbyist Harvey Whittemore who envisioned a new city built across 67 square miles of this remote desert valley, nearly twice the size of Summerlin in the western Las Vegas valley.
Coyote Springs lies about 20 miles west of the town of Moapa at the junction of Highways 93 and 168.
The master plan envisions a final community of more than 159,000 homes as well as retail shops, schools, emergency services, office space, light industrial units and no less than ten golf courses on more than 43,000 acres which straddle northeast Clark County and southwest Lincoln County.
In the earlier days of the project, Whittemore navigated his vision through the detailed process of acquiring federal land permits, obtaining water rights and procuring federal state and local entitlements for the project. But then the housing market crashed putting the massive project on ice indefinitely.
Albert Seeno and his brother Thomas Seeno bought an interest in the Coyote Springs development company, Wingfield Nevada Holding Group in 2007. Whittemore eventually resigned from the Group and sold his interest to the Seeno brothers in 2010.
Then the legal battles began. In January of this year, Wingfield sued Whittemore, charging that he had embezzled millions of dollars from the project. That case is set to come before the Clark County District Court in May 2013. Wingfield is also embroiled in legal action against homebuilder Pardee Homes over agreements regarding infrastructure improvements.
But there was no mention of Whittemore or these legal entanglements at Wednesday’s event. Instead Albert Seeno was firmly focused on the future of the project.
“This is an essential and important moment in the history of this project,” said Seeno. “Now that our electricity is live we can move forward on the development of essential infrastructure and begin to realize the great potential of this wonderful property.”
Seeno expressed appreciation to the staff at Lincoln County Power District (LCPD) for helping to design and build the electrical infrastructure.
“LCPD worked with us every step of the way to see that these facilities and this system was designed, installed and commenced as planned,” Seeno said.
LCPD General Manager Dave Luttrell applauded the Coyote Springs developers for their visionary approach to the project’s infrastructure.
“They were not content to just build infrastructure to serve this golf course alone,” Luttrell said. “They recognized that we need to start building infrastructure that would allow all of the development that they see coming beyond this.”
Luttrell explained that the district had installed nearly $7 million of electrical equipment and infrastructure at Coyote Springs. These included a state of the art substation and an underground distribution system that would serve as the backbone for future growth, Luttrell said.
“What is in the ground now is way more than what is needed for the facilities you see here,” Luttrell said. “It has been no small undertaking for us. We are very happy to be a part of it.”
When asked for a time frame of when homes would start being built at Coyote Springs, Albert Seeno responded, “Not soon enough!”
“By that, I mean that it was always the intent to be at that stage where we would be building homes already,” Seeno continued. “But the economy didn’t cooperate.”
This project is one of the largest projects in the United States,” Seeno added. “And Rome wasn’t built overnight. It takes time and the time has to be right. I don’t have to explain the economy and where we’ve been. But that is not forever. Things will get better in the Las Vegas region just like it will in the rest of the United States. All of our permits are in place and ready to go when it does, so I feel we are in a very strong position for the future.”
