When complete, the 35-acre office park will have 700,000 square feet of space, a Homewood Suites hotel and the existing Panevino restaurant.

"Our goal has been to create an address," said Ralph Murphy, executive vice president with Marnell Properties, a subsidiary of Marnell Corrao Associates. "It will be second only to Hughes Center in terms of size."

The Hughes Center, at Flamingo and Paradise roads, consists of eight buildings and totals more than 1.1 million square feet. A ninth building is now under construction.

Murphy and Raedene Counts, commercial leasing executive, presented a roundup of the company's project at a Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR) event this week.

Now under construction at the Marnell Corporate Center is a five-story, 117,000-square-foot building. The shell will be completed in the fourth quarter, with first occupancy by January.

The parking garage will be the second for the Marnell Corporate Center. A five-story parking structure will be built along with the five-story building now under construction. Parking for earlier buildings was accommodated through surface parking.

Lennar Homes recently took up 86,000 square feet in a recently completed four-story building. Another 6,000 square feet remain open.

Marnell Properties expects to break ground in the next 120 days on a four-story 90,000-square-foot building. The four stories of office space will be built on top of a three-level parking garage, which will be built partially underground.

The two parking garages are a first for the Marnell Corporate Center.

"We just ran out of dirt," Murphy said. "Luckily the market is allowing us to execute a parking structure and still make it work," he said.

In addition to the office buildings, a Homewood Suites is planning to break ground on a hotel in Spring 2007.

Marnell Properties plans to build a total of seven buildings and has the ability to add three more smaller buildings, in the range of 15,000 to 30,000 square feet each.

Already complete in the Marnell Corporate Center is the Panevino restaurant, Marnell Corraos' corporate office and four other buildings.

Marnell Airport Center is a second office park being planned by Marnell Properties. The office and warehouse development will be on about 75 acres adjacent to McCarran International Airport with some buildings having access to the runway system.

On 15 acres to the north of the site, Marnell plans four buildings. Construction will begin on three of the buildings, at 80,000 square feet each, by the end of the year, Murphy said. A fourth 10,000-square-foot building will be built as a relocation of a UMC Quick Care.

Also under way is the 75-acre McCarran Marketplace at Eastern Avenue and Russell Road. The project came under intense scrutiny by the county after it was announced that a Wal-Mart would be one of the main anchor tenants. Other tenants include Ross Dress for Less, PetsMart, and Office Depot.

Vertical construction is expected to begin on Wal-Mart and a Lowe's within the next 30 days. Marnell Properties is working on leasing the remaining space, Murphy said. In total, the retail center will be about 650,000 square feet and is scheduled to open in January.

Marnell Properties leases the airport-owned land from Clark County; the land is not a part of the Cooperative Management Area, Murphy said. The land is then subleased to different tenants, or buildings are built and then leased to tenants, Murphy said.

In other news:

• CIP Real Estate, an Irvine, Calif.-based real estate investment company, and its joint venture partner, Buchanan Street Partners of Newport Beach, Calif., continue their buyup of the Hughes Airport Center.

The companies recently purchased a 39,995-square-foot office/flex building and an adjacent 1.79-acre parcel for $6.5 million for Las Vegas-based Windrock Enterprises LLC. The property is at 6770 Bermuda Road, on the northeast corner of Bermuda and Pamalyn Avenue.

The joint venture now owns 1.4 million square feet of the 3.2 million square feet of office and industrial space in the Hughes Airport Center.

Robert Strom, principal of CIP Real Estate, said they have been interested in the 420-acre Hughes Airport Center in part because of its location.

"It is a great location, and with all the growth going on in Las Vegas, it won't be duplicated," he said.

The company now owns six acres of undeveloped land within the Hughes Airport Center. Strom said its still early to know ecactly how the land will be used, but he said a campus-style office park may be the best way to use the property.

"We see what Marnell has done less than a mile from there with their mid-rise and high-rise buildings going in there," Strom said. "We see the same type of potential on our vacant land."

Stoltz Management still owns a significant amount of space in Hughes Airport Center.

CIP Realty and Buchanan Street Partners have spent $190 million to acquire its Hughes Airport Center buildings and parcels, Strom said.

• The Residences at MGM Grand recently topped off its second 40-story condominium-hotel tower, and construction on the third tower has surpassed the 19th floor.

Completion of the second tower is slated for the end of the year, the third tower is on track for a mid-2007 completion, and the first tower opened in June.

A joint venture between Turnberry Ltd. and MGM Mirage, the project is being built on the northeast end of MGM Grand's 116-acre property.

Sales began for the Residences in January 2004, and less than 100 of the 1,727 suites remain. Prices for the fully furnished junior-, one- and two-bedroom residences range from $600,000 to more than $2.5 million.

"Get used to higher materials costs," Ken Simonson, chief economist of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), said in a release last week.

Simonson made the comments after the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its report on the producer price index (PPI) for May.

"Overall, producer prices are remaining well behaved, with only a .2 percent increase in May and a 1.5 percent increase in the last year, outside of food and energy," Simonson said. "But the PPI for construction materials and components jumped 1.2 percent last month and 7.8 percent over 12 months. By project type, the 12-month increases range from 8 percent for new single-unit residential construction to 16 percent for highway construction.

"Many materials are contributing to the increase," Simonson said. "In the last 12 months, there have been increases of 87 percent for copper and brass mill shapes, 48 percent for asphalt, 40 percent for diesel fuel, 26 percent for gypsum products, 18 percent for plastic construction products, and 15 percent for cement."

Venture Corp., a California builder of privately owned commercial buildings is building a project in Las Vegas, the Venture Commerce Center “Las Vegas. The four commercial buildings, located on Eastern Avenue in the Parkview Center Business Park, will have 38 privately owned buildings ranging in size from 1,313 square feet to 3,600 square feet.

Venture Commerce Center-Las Vegas began construction in March and will be ready for occupancy by the end of the year.

Venture has about 2 million square feet in various stages of development in California, most recently with new projects in Palm Desert, San Diego, Sacramento, Palmdale and Lancaster. Venture Commerce Center-Las Vegas is Venture's first in Nevada.

• The city of Las Vegas recently approved plans for phase three of the World Market Center and its adjacent nine-story parking garage. At nearly 2.1 million square feet and 16-stories with a construction cost more than $500 million, building three will be the largest and most diversified building planned for the 12 million-square-foot home furnishings campus.

World Market Center plans to pull permits and break ground on phase three in the fourth quarter of 2006 with an 18-month construction timeline. Once complete in 2008, the first three buildings will total 5 million square feet of permanent home furnishings showrooms across all industry segments with an additional million-plus square feet available at temporary venues.

World Market Center officials have already begun leasing building three with almost 15 percent of the space already committed.

The layout of the third building is as follows: open-daily Design Center showrooms on floors one, three, four and five; home accent, accessories and seasonal merchandise on floors six and seven; floor coverings goods including rugs, carpets, hardwood, tile, stone and laminate on floors eight and nine; lighting showrooms including portable and fixtures on floors 10 and 11; furniture showrooms with an emphasis on high-end goods and contemporary sector on floors 12 through 16. Each floor will be connected by sky bridges to building one and two.

Phase two, currently under construction and opening for the January 2007 market, is a 1.6 million-square-foot, 16-story structure and is the largest nongaming construction project under way in the city of Las Vegas.

The 57-acre campus, when completed, will boast eight buildings totaling 12 million square feet, making the World Market Center one of the largest trade complexes in the world.