U.S. officials hope to fetch at least $19 million by selling 120 acres of southern Las Vegas Valley land.
The Bureau of Land Management plans to hold an auction at 10 a.m. Thursday for a dozen parcels that range from 2.5 to 25 acres each.
Much of the land is south of Blue Diamond Road between Rainbow Boulevard and Buffalo Drive, with other chunks near the intersection of Cactus Avenue and Jones Boulevard and on Bermuda Road just north of St. Rose Parkway.
The BLM says the fair market value of the parcels is $19.19 million combined — almost $160,000 per acre — and it won’t sell them for anything less.
The agency will hold the auction at its office at 4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive in Las Vegas. Winners must pay 20 percent of the purchase price via cashier’s check by 3:30 p.m. Thursday, and the remainder is due within 180 days.
The BLM’s first local auction this year, on Jan. 16, was for 440 acres that the agency said was worth $25.3 million combined, or $57,420 an acre. The agency wound up selling 24 of the 28 parcels for $23.8 million, with four parcels left on the table.
BLM land sales roared during the boom years but plunged when the housing market collapsed. In 2006, the agency sold at least 2,924 acres locally for $777 million, an average of $266,000 per acre. From 2007 to 2012, it sold just 107 acres.
That total excludes the 480 acres of Henderson land that BLM officials sold for $10.5 million in mid-2012 to would-be sports arena developer Chris Milam, who ultimately never closed escrow.
Months after the sale, Henderson City Hall sued Milam for fraud in connection with his speculative, multi-venue project south of the M Resort, claiming he only wanted the low-priced public land so he could flip it to other developers.
As part of a legal settlement last spring, the city barred Milam from doing business in Henderson.