Gary Evans
World View Towers would be a mile from World Market Center
LAS VEGAS — A financial partnership wants to build a 1 million square foot furniture showroom building near downtown Las Vegas, becoming a permanent rival to the World Market Center.

The building, just a mile south of the World Market Center, would be a 13-story tower complementing two high-rise condominium towers with 1,236 condos and

about 63,000 square feet of office and retail space. It will be on eight acres assembled by Las Vegas-based Pierce Developers and Merrill Cos. of California, which have formed company called Wall Street Nevada.

News of the proposed $700 million complex, to be called World View Towers, comes as the World Market Center continues to work on its planned complex of eight showroom buildings, a $2 billion, 12-million-square-foot showroom project it expects to complete by 2012.

The WMC second building, which would add 2 million square feet to the 1.3 million square feet that opened last July, is scheduled to open for the January 2014 market.

World View Towers developers hope to begin construction on the new center late this year but it must first secure financing and clear government hurdles. Craig Katchen, Pierce Development’s CEO, told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the partnership has “quite a bit of cash” but has not raised the full financing needed.

Pierce, who describes the proposed showplace as an alternative to the World Market Center, also said Wall Street Nevada, is interviewing brokers who are familiar with furniture to recruit exhibitors for its building.