Las Vegas’ Chinatown area is filled with restaurant-packed commercial centers, drawing locals and tourists alike to the busy corridor.
Now another retail plaza is on the way, after prior big plans for the site fell through.
Developer Eddie Ni acquired 3.2 acres of land along the south side of Spring Mountain Road between Procyon Street and Polaris Avenue, a mile west of the Las Vegas Strip, property records show. His $9.5 million purchase closed last month.
Clark County commissioners approved his three-story, roughly 116,000-square-foot complex in September. Plans call for retail, restaurant and entertainment space, as well as a six-story parking garage, records show.
Ni, founder of Illinois-based Windfall Group, confirmed on Monday that he closed his purchase of the Chinatown-area site and that he plans to break ground this summer on the complex, called Pacifica Vegas.
Overall, the estimated cost of the development is $60 million to $70 million.
Drawing development
Ni said that his company develops Asian-themed shopping centers around the U.S. and that Las Vegas is a target market because of its growing Asian population.
He also said that the Chinatown commercial district along Spring Mountain keeps growing as new Asian concepts, especially restaurants, keep arriving.
Pacifica Vegas isn’t the only new retail project penciled for the Chinatown area.
Las Vegas developer Ali Kaveh, owner of Platinum Realty, acquired property along the north side of Spring Mountain at Wynn Road last month.
He said that he aims to break ground on the shopping center, Jade Promenade, in the fourth quarter of this year.
Clark County commissioners in December approved his project plans, which call for a nearly 73,500-square-foot complex consisting of six buildings on a T-shaped plot, as well as outdoor dining areas and a playground.
Big plans come and go
Ni wasn’t the first developer to envision a project on what’s now his property.
Over the past two decades, several plans encompassed Ni’s site and neighboring plots, county records show. During the easy-money-fueled real estate bubble of the mid-2000s, people wanted to build sky-high, and the plans grew increasingly big and complex.
By 2005, developers had drawn up plans for a condo project with four low-rise and high-rise buildings, comprising nearly 700 units total.
By 2006, plans called for four high-rises with a total of more than 1,700 units. And by 2007, plans called for five high-rises with thousands of units combined, spanning hotel rooms, timeshare units and resort condos.
However, the real estate market eventually crashed, the broader economy imploded and countless projects in Southern Nevada — including the Chinatown high-rises and most other envisioned skyscrapers in the Las Vegas Valley — never materialized or otherwise got derailed.
By 2016, the Spring Mountain property was being eyed again, as developers filed plans for an apartment complex with some commercial space.
Then in 2024, there were plans for a seven-building commercial center on the block. That, too, wasn’t built.
The property’s backstory is far from unique in Las Vegas, as Southern Nevada has a long history of developers drawing up big plans and never following through.
Allegiant Stadium, for instance, was built on land that had seen numerous ideas come and go for decades.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
