by Terri Likens, Staff Writer - Red Rock News
09-Mar-01
After nearly a decade of acrimony, The Cliffs on Oak Creek development looked like a done deal late last year.
Instead, the cumbersome timeshare and retail development may have collapsed under its own weight.
City officials say the project is unlikely to be built as planned because of the expense involved in the massive
development.
Last fall, the financially troubled Blake Maddox and his partners pressured the city to change the agreement it
had with the city so that the developers could sell the property.
Although the city eventually cobbled together a deal with the Maddoxes, the lender, Cliffs Mortgage LLC, took back
the property before it could be sold or developed.
In December, Ken Schaub of Cliffs Mortgage said he expected the project eventually would be developed by another
group under the development agreement, and said he expected to have good news in January.
But the news never came, and Schaub did not return phone calls on the status of the development.
Criticism of the Uptown project often focused on its scale. All in all, it was to have 195 timeshares and more
than 80,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.
The considerable expense of the project's first phase could be a problem, according to Community Development Director
John O'Brien.
That phase included a 169-space parking garage, 30 timeshares, 23,000 square feet of retail space and the development
of a 7-acre creekside park for the city. The site would need extensive grading, as well.
"Just the earthwork alone is extremely expensive," O'Brien said.
"I would suspect, and maybe I'm wrong, that they may want to revisit the site plan," he said of potential
future developers.
"If that happens, then we'd have to take it back through the development process."
Mayor Alan Everett also recently commented at a meeting of the city council that he did not expect the project
to be constructed as planned.
O'Brien said that development review approval for the project was good through mid-year 2002.
Talk that the project may be dead has been spreading through the Uptown area.
"I'm glad," said Sharon Nagy, an Uptown businesswoman.
Those who heard the talk generally breathed a sigh of relief, she said.
The lengthy ordeal "certainly has educated people on that property," she said.
"I hope that when something else is done there, that people will be very alert and aware of what could be
there and would attend any meetings."
Nagy also hoped that future development there would be reduced in scale considerably.
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