Upscale apartment complex being built near Summerlin

A Las Vegas developer has started building an upscale apartment complex next to the Boca Park retail center, saying it should be finished by early 2021.

The Calida Group broke ground on the 359-unit Elysian at Tivoli about four months ago, co-founder Eric Cohen said recently.

The rental project — which, as its name implies, is near retail-and-office complex Tivoli Village — has been in the works for a few years and is slated to feature a rock-climbing wall, virtual-reality sports and other amenities.

Units will range from 650 to 1,700 square feet, with rents probably spanning from $1,200 to $1,300 per month to as much as $3,500 a month, Cohen said.

He expects to complete the project in 14 to 16 months.

Calida is one of the biggest apartment developers in the valley, and its project on Alta Drive just east of Rampart Boulevard comes amid a yearslong rental-complex construction boom that has been mostly in the suburbs.

It also opens a new chapter for a heavily litigated parcel whose prior owners were compared in legal documents to the Hatfields and McCoys.

Calida bought its 15.6-acre project site from Las Vegas developer EHB Companies in 2017 for $25.5 million, Clark County records show. A few months before the deal closed, Cohen said that he had been eyeing the property for at least five years, but it was tied up in too many lawsuits to try to develop.

At the time, he also said he aimed to start construction in the second quarter of 2018.

Asked about the construction delay, Cohen said Monday that the process of getting project permits “ended up being a lot slower than we had expected.”

The land and some adjacent acreage were formerly owned by Boca Park developer Triple Five, but City National Bank seized the spread through foreclosure in 2009, property and court records show.

EHB bought it in 2010 from the bank and unveiled plans to build an enclosed mall. Almost two months after the sale, Triple Five sued the new owner and City National over an easement agreement.

Triple Five sued EHB again in 2016, alleging the landowner, “purely out of malice,” disabled tall, illuminated signs for Boca Park that were on EHB’s property.

EHB then sued Triple Five in 2017, alleging that during the “nearly five-year (and counting) stall caused by … baseless litigation,” the market for its project went to Downtown Summerlin, the once-mothballed, 106-acre outdoor mall a few miles away.

The lawsuits involving Triple Five and EHB were filed by and against affiliated real estate holding companies.

“For whatever reason, Triple Five and the EHB Companies were like the Hatfields and McCoys — always feuding and always fierce competitors,” City National’s legal team said in court papers in 2016.

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