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Upscale apartment complex planned for Las Vegas’ Chinatown area

Las Vegas’ Chinatown area is set to get another upscale apartment complex under plans approved last week.

Developer Jonathan Fore, who built Lotus along Spring Mountain Road near Valley View Boulevard a few years ago, wants to build a seven-story, 170-unit complex nearby on the other side of Valley View called The Pearl.

He hopes to break ground in August and finish in summer 2022.

A parking garage would comprise the first three stories of the building, which would feature more than 11,200 square feet of ground-floor retail space, county documents show.

Clark County commissioners approved project plans Wednesday.

Fore, a managing partner at Fore Property Co., is part of a small crop of developers who have built rental projects in Las Vegas’ core lately. Southern Nevada has been flooded with new apartment complexes in recent years, but construction has mostly been in the suburbs, where it’s easier and cheaper to build, developers have said.

Fore told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he’s bullish on Chinatown because residents would be close to plenty of nightlife and dining options, by foot or car.

“Tenants tend to gravitate where they like to play,” he said.

Fore said he expects to close the purchase of the 2-acre project site – currently home to an auto service shop – in July.

Rents won’t be cheap. Apartments at The Pearl would range from 690 to 1,382 square feet, with prices stretching from $1,550 to $2,500 per month, according to Fore.

By comparison, the average asking rent for a Las Vegas-area apartment at the end of 2019 was $1,080 per month, according to the Nevada State Apartment Association.

Lotus, meanwhile, features a DJ booth, yoga and massage rooms, virtual-reality sports and other amenities. Fore sold the 295-unit complex in fall 2018, just several months after tenants started moving in, for nearly $77 million.

The sale amounted to $260,000 per unit, double the market average at the time as tracked by brokerage Colliers International.

Other new rental projects in Las Vegas’ urban areas include downtown’s Fremont9, which opened in 2018, and shareDOWNTOWN, in the Arts District, which developer Sam Cherry expects to finish in May.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.

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