Nevada State University’s new satellite campus in North Las Vegas is set to take shape.
Public officials and developers held a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday for the university’s three-story, 30,000-square-foot facility along the north side of Lake Mead Boulevard just west of Las Vegas Boulevard.
It is expected to open in fall 2027 and is being developed by California-based Agora Realty & Management.
Agora also plans to build retail space around the university building.
Nevada State’s main campus is in Henderson, and more than one speaker on Tuesday noted the new campus would make it easier for students in North Las Vegas to attend classes.
One in five students at the university — formerly Nevada State College — live in North Las Vegas, according to Matt McNair, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
“Students need education, and they need it close to home,” he said.
Nevada State’s main campus is more than 20 miles from the satellite property.
Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown said the opportunity to earn a four-year degree hasn’t always been accessible to North Las Vegas residents, who, she added, have cited such issues as distance and transportation as barriers.
It felt like a higher-education degree was not made for them, according to the mayor, who said officials are “changing that today.”
Lease agreement
In December, the Nevada System of Higher Education’s Board of Regents approved a lease agreement for the new building.
The lease with the developer comes to an annual rent of $900,000 and is subject to 3 percent hikes per year. The rental agreement has an initial 10-year term, with an option for Nevada State to either extend the lease by another 10 years or purchase the building, NSHE documents showed.
North Las Vegas’ Redevelopment Agency agreed to kick in about $7.5 million, which will fund rent and operating costs for the first five years, and the project landed $2.5 million from the Nevada Legislature for academic programming.
The university also secured a $500,000 gift from an anonymous donor and a $250,000 gift from NV Energy, according to a briefing paper for the regents meeting.
Agora, meanwhile, has multiple projects underway in North Las Vegas.
Besides the satellite campus, it is developing Hylo Park, a sprawling project on the former Texas Station and Fiesta Rancho casino sites along Rancho Drive at Lake Mead Boulevard.
Hylo Park was designed to span 73 acres and bring retail space, athletic facilities, housing and more. Agora broke ground last year on a roughly 90,000-square-foot retail plaza on a portion of Texas Station’s former footprint.
The developer purchased the two former casino sites for about $58 million combined in 2023 from Station Casinos. The former owner had demolished Texas Station and Fiesta, both of which had been closed since the onset of the pandemic.
Agora then sold 36.5 acres of the former Texas Station land for $26 million in 2024. Homebuilding giant Lennar Corp. drew up plans for a 373-lot subdivision on that site, city records show.
Redevelopment project
Agora is also redeveloping North Las Vegas’ former City Hall campus on Civic Center Drive just north of Lake Mead, in a project that includes selling the city-owned land to the developer for almost nothing.
This past October, the City Council gave the green light to sell roughly 19 acres of city-owned property to Agora for just $1,938.80.
The site was appraised last year at about $6.8 million and a second time at around $13.5 million, according to staff reports.
Plans call for Agora to build a civic building, a commercial building, and a mixed-use complex that includes at least 100 residential units.
City officials kicked off the project in January. At the event, North Las Vegas council members smashed sledgehammers into the side of a shuttered city building, and afterward, Goynes-Brown climbed into the cab of a Hitachi ZX380 excavator.
With her hands on the controls and wearing a hard hat — and as a demolition contractor stood nearby — she started tearing the building down.
According to city documents, the redevelopment would generate around $112.2 million in economic output, and long-term operations would create annual economic output of about $20.5 million.
The project is expected to take several years.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
