KVIG Informative

Nevada’s biggest private apartment developer keeps building the same kind of project over and over: small, income-restricted units for seniors who can’t afford much else. The newest one just opened its doors — and the company says the need isn’t close to being met.

Ovation Development Corp. and its affiliate, Heirloom by Ovation, held a ribbon-cutting and move-in ceremony for Heirloom at Torrey Pines, a $60 million, roughly 190-unit affordable senior housing project at 6540 W. Arby Ave. in the southwest Las Vegas Valley.

U.S. Rep. Susie Lee spoke at the ceremony alongside members of the Molasky family, which founded Ovation. The company was founded by Alan Molasky, whose father, the late Irwin Molasky, was among the most influential developers in Las Vegas outside the Strip.

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Heirloom at Torrey Pines is the latest project in Ovation’s senior affordable housing portfolio, which has grown to include income- and rent-restricted communities for residents ages 55 and older earning between 30% and 60% of the area median income. Units at the company’s comparable properties have started as low as $1,187 a month with utilities included.

Ovation has built nearly 10,000 total multifamily units across more than 40 communities in the Las Vegas Valley since 2001, according to the company, making it the largest private multifamily developer in the region. Its affordable senior housing portfolio alone now includes more than 2,700 units across prior projects, with six additional communities totaling more than 1,650 units planned or under construction through 2028.

Demand for the company’s existing senior housing has outpaced supply at opening. A separate Ovation project, Heirloom at Rome in the northwest valley, had more than 182 occupied units within months of opening last year.

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Some of Ovation’s affordable housing sites, including Heirloom at Rome, sit on land once owned by the federal government and later granted to the City of Las Vegas specifically for affordable housing development, a mechanism the company has used across multiple projects in its pipeline.

Eighteen projects in, Ovation still isn’t caught up. The company already has six more senior housing communities in the pipeline through 2028 — a backlog that says less about how fast Ovation can build than about how far behind Southern Nevada’s supply of affordable senior housing still is.