COLUMN: Stuart returns to roots following dot-com crash

He's baaaaack.

Jim Stuart, a founding partner of the former Stuart Mixer Commercial and president of Colliers International, left Las Vegas two years ago for the Silicon Valley, where he established realcentric.com, a business-to-business Internet company focused on commercial real estate.

At the time it seemed like a natural: dot com was the present and real estate dot com was the future. It turned out that future might be in 10 years, but not in 2001. After that industry crashed and burned, Stuart closed his Los Gatos, Calif., company and returned to Las Vegas.

California's loss is our gain.

Stuart has formed CENTRA Properties LLC, a develop- ment and management company. As president, he is responsible for investor and bank relations, capital fund raising, financial and business strategic planning, development analysis, site acquisitions and company operations.

CENTRA is developing Siena Town Center, a 15-acre project one mile west of Interstate 215 on Tropicana Avenue and Hualapai Way. The 113,656-square-foot retail center will be anchored by a Vons grocery store.

It also is developing Northstar Business Park, a center on Craig Road in North Las Vegas that will feature more than 117,000 square feet of flex warehouse/distribution and showroom space.

Future projects are a 550,000-square-foot distribution center in North Las Vegas and a 22-acre mixed-use retail project in Green Valley.

Stuart said he and his investors purchased the 15 acres for the Siena project about five years ago for $1 million, and he is delighted that they are able to make use of the land for this strip mall.

In fact, Stuart seems pleased to be back in Las Vegas, doing business and greeting old friends. He said the experience in California has humbled him and he hopes he has learned some valuable life lessons from it.

Actually, he never had an ego problem and while he may have learned some lessons, I hate to see such a great guy go through the angst he suffered as he saw his company falter.

In his spare time, Stuart and his wife, Candace, are expecting their third daughter and he is reimmersing himself into the community endeavors that missed his charity. Child Haven was on the receiving end of much time and money raised by Stuart and his former partner, Mike Mixer. Stuart said he was looking forward to re-establishing rapport with that worthy cause and helping make life a bit easier for these disadvantaged children.

Stuart said because of the young age of his daughters, the family decided to maintain its home in Las Vegas and he spent a lot of time shuttling back and forth while he tried to keep realcentric.com alive. Consequently, the transition has been only a plus for his daughters. They have their father back on a full-time basis and he basks in the glow of little-girl love.

It was nice sitting down with Stuart and his publicist, Paula Yakubik, at Cozymel's. We reminisced about the first time I met Stuart -- at Cozymel's -- when he and his wife had just had their first daughter.

There's been a lot of water under both of our bridges since then, but I'm delighted to report that the older, wiser Jim Stuart is back.

Carmel Hopkins, real estate product manager for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Las Vegas Sun, can be reached at 380-4574. Her e-mail address is Carmel_Hopkins@ lasvegasnewspapers.com. Snail mail is P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.

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