Thursday, May 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Potholes in the Rhodes

Developer who wants to build on Blue Diamond Hill has tarnished construction record

By Heidi Walters

Developer Jim Rhodes would have the more gullible citizen believe that, gosh, that mine on top of Blue Diamond Hill is ugly--slapping a few thousand houses on it is just the thing to save the planet and restore order to the natural world.

But even if you sympathize with Rhodes' position, and sighed Monday when Gov. Kenny Guinn passed a bill limiting development in the zone bordering the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area to one house per two acres, have you considered this: What if the houses he puts up there, however many, are crap?

It could happen. Rhodes has a history of trouble here in the valley. In February 1999, the state Contractors Board even fined Rhodes $5,000 and placed him on a one-year probation following an investigation into complaints from homeowners that he had failed to resolve their complaints. According to the state Contractors Board, in the past five years Rhodes Homes has had 214 total complaints filed against it--133 declared valid, and six still pending. And the problem-riddled projects are spread across the valley.

Take, for instance, that weird handshake deal back in 1996 with Las Vegas' then-parks director, David Kuiper. Apparently, Rhodes and Kuiper agreed that in exchange for not having to pay a residential construction tax on new homes in the Elkhorn Springs community in northwest Las Vegas, Rhodes would build a park in a detention basin next to the Betsy Rhodes Elementary School (named after his mom). Rhodes never built the park.

Stephen Reilly, who was shopping around for a home in 1997, said the "future park site" sign clinched his decision: He bought a house nearby and moved into it in 1998. "That land adjacent to the school was never finished," says Reilly, who is on the Elkhorn Springs Homeowners Association board. "We called it the pit, the hole, the sinkhole. It decayed. Trash was being dumped in there. Nobody knew what was going on."

The citizens rallied City Councilman Larry Brown, whose ward it was in at the time, and talks between the city and Rhodes ensued. The city eventually took over the park in 2000, Reilly says, and the Sunny Springs Park finally got built. "It cost the city $4 million to build that park," says Reilly, who was on the city's Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission for 2 1/2 years. "And I will praise the city for bailing us out and building us that park. It's an awesome, award-winning park that, ironically, we wouldn't have gotten if Rhodes had built it."

Dude Downs, who bought his house in the Eagle Heights development across from the elementary school because of the promised park, says that delayed feature wasn't the only nuisance. He had thought the four streets in their small neighborhood would be public. But they turned out to be private--meaning the residents have to pay for their maintenance. And, Downs says, "We don't have any sidewalks. Rhodes kept telling us, `They're not in yet.' But then he told us, `You're not getting any.'" And the latest effrontery, says Downs, is that after living in the development for five years, his family just received "a kind of nerve-wracking letter" saying there's a lien on their house "because [Rhodes] didn't pay his subcontractors.'"

"He just doesn't finish things," says Downs.

Some residents in Elkhorn also sued Rhodes over alleged flooding problems because of incompleted landscaping.

Rhodes' public affairs officers did not call back before deadline.

And then there was the Casa Linda case. Rhodes was one of three developers who built homes on a piece of land in northwest Las Vegas. According to construction defects attorney Scott Canepa, the developers neglected to treat the soils, which are expansive and corrosive, and major defects in the 190 homes (about half built by Rhodes) occurred.

"In some of the homes, the slabs were tilted as much as five inches," Canepa says. "There were cracks in the drywall a quarter- to a half-inch wide running the length of the wall. And [the residents] were uniformly given the runaround by the customer service department."

Homeowners sued, and after four years won a $16.25 million settlement. "It was, and still stands as, the largest civil settlement for a residential construction defect case ever paid in Nevada," says Canepa.

Swinging to the south end of the valley are yet more Rhodes entanglements. In the Palm City project that Rhodes planned for the area now being developed by another company as Tuscany Hills, Rhodes defaulted on $24 million in mortgage loans in July 1999.

In Palm Hills, a project begun in 1996, Rhodes still hasn't finished a list of to-dos--fix sidewalk cracks, finish walls and curbs and so on. The homeowners are angry, and the city of Henderson is getting anxious for him to finally meet his obligations. If he doesn't, he could lose the right to continue a next-door rock-crushing operation the city permitted. Ken Koshiro, new-development engineer for the city, notes that Rhodes did complete his fix-it list at another project there, Palm Canyon. And the city maintains hope for Palm Hills. But if Rhodes doesn't fix Palm Hills, it could cost taxpayers, says Koshiro. "I'm not sure we have the money, if Rhodes walked on the bond, to fix all those things," Koshiro says.

Amanda Cyphers, a Henderson councilwoman, says in her eight years on the council she has "never seen a project being drawn out this long."

Richard Franklin, a general contractor who investigates construction defects, says homeowners in another Rhodes development, Palm Gardens, are complaining about water leakage, soil problems, inadequate roof materials and more.

"I would probably classify Jim Rhodes as very amateurish," says Franklin, who's investigated more than 300 Rhodes homes. "There's some others equally as bad as he is, but he's the leader of the band."