Vencor sells LV office building

A Las Vegas office building owned by a health care company will become the new international headquarters for an Arkansas-based telecommunications firm.

Townes Telecommunications, Lewisville, Ark., has acquired the 62,089-square-foot office building at 5100 W. Sahara Ave. from Vencor Inc.

The transaction was valued at more than $7.5 million, say the agents who negotiated the deal from CB Richard Ellis and Las Vegas International Realty.

Vencor had acquired the building when it bought out Transitional Health Corp. last year. Vencor never occupied the building, which is adjacent to a company-operated hospital the company said it plans to expand sometime in the future.

A spokesman for Townes Telecommunications Chief Executive Larry Townes said the company will establish its executive offices on the top floor of the four-story building, but has no plans to apply for licenses to operate in Nevada.

The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada has no record of privately held Townes applying for permission to operate in the state.

Bill Hegmann, a Texarkana, Texas-based attorney who serves as general counsel for Townes, said about 10 to 15 administrators would be based in Las Vegas for the company beginning early next year. Planning, finance and legal functions of the company are expected to be located here.

The company plans to sublease the rest of the building.

Hegmann said Townes is relocating administrative offices because of the state's tax advantages and because he felt he got a good bargain for the amount of square footage he acquired.

Arkansas regulatory officials said Townes is the parent company for Walnut Hill Telephone Co., the local telephone exchange in Lewisville, a small community in southwestern Arkansas. Officials also said the company has a few scattered cellular telephone company interests.

Hegmann said Townes also operates local exchange companies in northeastern Texas, one in Colorado and is planning two acquisitions in two midwestern states. Larry Townes, he said, also holds interests in banking and ranching.

Vencor, the Louisville, Ky.-based seller of the building, vows to add 500 jobs in Southern Nevada in the next two years.

Last month, however, the company announced it would cut 1,000 jobs nationwide, including an undetermined number of certified therapist positions in Southern Nevada. The company's top Las Vegas executive, Dale Kirby, resigned as the local administrator and was replaced by Kay Gray on an interim basis.

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