An affordable-housing developer held a grand opening for an expanded complex in North Las Vegas, an event disrupted by two people who were trespassed from the site.
Nevada HAND on Monday held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Pearson Pines Senior Apartments, a 118-unit community near the northwest corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue. The complex, for low-income seniors, offers a fitness center, computer lab, billiards room and free weekly fixed-route transportation, according to a news release.
Located at 2530 Morton Ave., Pearson Pines consists of a renovated 58-unit building previously known as Buena Vista Springs and a newly constructed 60-unit building next door.
It’s named in honor of the late Dr. William Pearson, a dentist and community activist who served as a Las Vegas councilman and Clark County commissioner.
The ceremony Monday morning included public officials such as Clark County Commissioner William McCurdy II, North Las Vegas Councilwoman Ruth Garcia-Anderson and state Assemblyman Jovan Jackson.
It also drew two people who made a disturbance at the event.
Jodie Wilkerson, director of communications for Nevada HAND, said afterward that she wasn’t sure who they were.
Photos captured by a Las Vegas Review-Journal photographer show one man who made a scene near attendees and appeared visibly angry.
North Las Vegas police said in a statement that at around 9:23 a.m., officers responded to a report of a disturbance at a senior apartment community on the 2500 block of Morton Avenue.
The incident apparently involved two people who were “being disruptive during an event” at the location, and responding officers brought the situation under control, said officer Roberto Vaquera from the department’s public information office.
Both people were trespassed from the property, and one of them was arrested on suspicion of petit larceny related to an incident earlier Monday, Vaquera said.
He confirmed that the other individual was not arrested.
Nevada HAND is the largest affordable-housing developer in the state, with 37 communities in its portfolio.
At Pearson Pines, the new building had a total development cost of $21.1 million, and the renovation of the existing building cost $10.6 million, the developer said.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
