Boy Scouts camp in Mount Potosi marketed for future luxury development

Newmark Knight Frank, a commercial brokerage, is marketing some 1,150 acres of land in Mount Potosi, home to the Boy Scouts of America Las Vegas Area Council’s camp, at a listing price of $90 million, according to a news release from Newmark.

The release said the site, which sits at an elevation of 5,800 feet, near Potosi Pass, could house 1,250 units with everything from single-family homes on 3-acre estate lots and attached town homes and stacked-flat condos.

According to Newmark, the current zoning is rural open land. The planned land use is a major development project.

“The Mount Potosi Canyon Road land listing offers an extraordinary opportunity for developers, as the potential acquisition of 1,150 acres of contiguous land in one transaction has not existed in Las Vegas for many years,” Curt Allsop, Newmark Knight Frank executive managing director, said in a statement. Allsop is leading the team working on the camp’s sale.

“Located just outside of Las Vegas in a striking natural environment offering unequaled views, the site’s remarkable attributes, combined with the traditional price points of a master-planned community will allow for luxury living without the luxury price tag,” he said in a news release.

Newmark is providing the marketing and representation services for the Boy Scouts. The marketed price of $90 million equates to just over $78,000 an acre.

In a mid-August email interview, Brian Gordon, principal at Applied Analysis in Las Vegas, said the average price per acre for urban land in the Las Vegas Valley for the past 12 months was roughly $400,000, excluding resort properties.

“This includes all property types (residential and nonresidential),” Gordon said in the email.

Another property on the western rim of the Las Vegas Valley, Bonnie Springs Ranch, which sits on nearly 64 acres near State Route 159, was sold earlier in 2019 and is pegged for a luxury housing development by its current owner, Las Vegas developer Joel Laub.

The shuttered, replica Old West town was sold for $25 million, more than $390,000 an acre, according to property records.

It’s unknown if there has been any interest on the Mount Potosi property at this point.

In an email from a spokeswoman at Newmark, the commercial brokerage said it couldn’t disclose if there are any potential buyers or interested parties.

End of an era

The Boy Scouts of America Las Vegas Area Council’s camp, known as the Spencer W. Kimball Scout Reservation, has been enjoyed by many area youths for more than six decades.

But, with a recent decision by the council, the camp at Mount Potosi, which sits near the small community of Mountain Springs, could end up in the hands of a developer.

“The decision to sell the Kimball Scout Reservation was not made lightly by our local council board of directors and was based on our ongoing efforts to manage our local Scouting resources wisely,” said Mike Marchese, Scout executive/CEO, Las Vegas Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, in an email. “This decision was deliberate by the council and was made as part of the re-evaluation of our property portfolio, allocation of financial resources and delivery of the Scouting program to best meet the community’s needs.”

It isn’t the first time the camp in Mount Potosi has been up for sale.

According to a July 2007 report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the camp was up for sale, and it was expected to bring in over $100 million at that time.

The report also said that the U.S. Forest Service had an interest in buying the land from the Boy Scouts. That might not be the case this time around.

“The Forest Service has no plans to acquire additional lands on the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area at this time,” Naaman Horn, public affairs specialist for the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, said in an email in mid-August. “We can not speak to how the land might be developed if it were sold.”

The Boy Scouts council obtained the acreage from the federal government under a land grant arrangement.

In the 2007 report from the Review-Journal, Philip Bevins, Scout executive for the Las Vegas Area Council at that time, said, “A land grant allowed the local Scout group to occupy the land in 1958 under a 25-year recreational-use arrangement that expired in 1983, conveying the land to the Scouts as owners.”

Competition from other camps led to the Boy Scouts putting the property on the market.

“It was hard for our camp with no waterfront and more arid temperatures to compete with other Boy Scout camps in surrounding states (California, Arizona and Utah in particular) with oceanfront, more alpine and/or water sports capabilities,” Marchese said in the email. “Our youth members will continue to enjoy camping activities and learn the principles of conservation at the camp properties of those neighboring local councils where a majority of our youth were already attending summer camp.”

Future development

In a release, Newmark pointed to a major widening project of state Route 160 as being advantageous to a potential future development at Potosi Mountain. A nearly $59 million road project along state Route 160, scheduled for completion in 2020, will widen the highway from two lanes to four in the Mountain Springs area.

“With the ongoing widening of nearby State Route 160, the site is approximately 12 minutes from the nearest grocery store,” the release said.

Newmark has contracted with a Las Vegas-area private helicopter company to provide aerial tours of the property to prospective buyers, according to the news release.

Contact reporter Jeffrey Meehan at jmeehan@pvtimes.com on Twitter @MeehanLv