Sun City Summerlin still popular

     Sun City Summerlin is a trendy place for Southern Nevada's adults to call home, according to Frank Pankratz, Del Webb Corp.'s senior vice president.
      More than ten years ago, Sun City Summerlin was the first single-builder age-restricted planned community in Las Vegas. Today, as the community reaches completion, it is just as popular as when it first opened its doors to Nevada retirees, according to Pankratz.
      "The community was so popular that we had residents wanting to buy a new home before the lots were even completed," Pankratz said.
      The popularity of the Sun City communities comes from their approach to retiring from work without retiring from life, according to Pankratz. Residents are offered more than 50 hobby and service clubs.
      "Sun City Summerlin is one of the most active Del Webb communities in the nation," Pankratz said. "After all, it helped to create the Sun City lifestyle model for other communities, such as Sun City MacDonald Ranch and the new Sun City Anthem community in Henderson."
      Sun City Summerlin offers four recreational centers for use by residents. Combined, they provide workout rooms, aerobic dance studios, indoor and outdoor pools, tennis and boccie ball courts and horseshoe pits.
      The recreation centers also feature activity rooms housing woodworking, photography, painting, quilting and a computer club.
      To visit, take the U.S. 95 Expressway to Lake Mead Boulevard and head west. The sales office is open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Homes are priced from the $130,000s to more than $400,000, and floor plans range from 1,183 to 2,895 square feet.
      Another age-restricted community, Sun City MacDonald Ranch, offers the same lifestyle with a small-town feel in Henderson.
      The developer's newest single-builder master-planned development is Anthem, located two miles south of Lake Mead Drive on Eastern Avenue. Anthem comprises three neighborhoods -- Anthem Country Club, a guard-gated country club; Sun City Anthem, for adults more than 55-years-old; and Coventry Homes at Anthem, building homes for every family.
      According to the City of Henderson Department of Comprehensive Planning, nearly 27 percent of the Anthem community will consist of open space, preserving the natural landscape of the high desert plateau.
      "This (Anthem) is an enormous milestone for the company and is very telling of what we can do in the future," said Phil Dion, president and chief executive officer of Del Webb Corp.
      Del Webb Corp. is the builder of Sun Cities nationwide, family country club communities, and Coventry Homes neighborhoods throughout the Southwest.