North Las Vegas reviving efforts to create medical campus

North Las Vegas has moved ahead with plans this week to create a medical campus on 135 acres of land the city purchased near the VA Medical Center.

The North Las Vegas City Council voted on Wednesday to allocate up to $500,000 for Cambridge Development Services to create a master plan for the city-owned land that is intended to be developed into a medical campus.

The goal is to create a “road map” for developing this medical campus, and the master plan is an early step in the process, said Greg Bortolin, director of communications for North Las Vegas.

The master plan will outline which type of buildings should be built and the layout of the medical campus, Bortolin said.

He said the land should probably contain a hospital as well as office and research buildings and could also have some restaurants and a hotel.

“This type of acreage is pretty rare in the (Las Vegas) valley,” Bortolin said. “We want to make sure we do it right.”

North Las Vegas has long wanted to get a medical campus developed on the 135 acres. In 2021, the City Council passed a resolution calling for a hospital to be built on the site. The city bought this land back from the Salt Lake City-based Pacific Group this year for $52.95 million after the Pacific Group’s plans to build a mixed-used medical campus called Helios fell through.

Bortolin said that purchase and the council’s vote approving funding for a master plan shows creating a medical campus is a “high, high priority,” for North Las Vegas.

Even though the city council approved funding, it can still be several years before construction begins on the medical campus, he said, since after a master plan is drafted, a developer needs to be picked and funding to be secured.

This report was updated July 17 to indicate council approved the funding.

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.