Homes are horribly out of place along this scenic stretch of Henderson

If you care about natural / organic spaces in urban settings, this particular area in Southern Nevada may leave you a bit perturbed and disheartened.

That’s because a massive amount of construction is in progress (and has been for quite some time now) on thousands of new residential units and 1.1 million square feet of commercial space.

The multi-use development, called Cadence, obliterates the scenery as you head down this part of Galleria Drive in Henderson, approaching, for instance, the Wells Trailhead, where I spent a recent Saturday morning. The trail is part of the Clark County Wetlands Park. Oh, and you’ll also need to pass roughly half a dozen roundabouts abuzz with aggressive drivers.

Cadence is the LandWell Company’s 2,200-acre master plan of homes, parks, schools, retail, trails and amenities, including a 50-acre park. (The park sounds super-redundant here, given how many natural spaces and recreational opportunities there are in the area, including the wetlands, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Sunrise/Frenchman Mountain, Black Mountain, Sloan Canyon and Valley of Fire.)

En route to the trail, you may very well become dismayed as you see homes wedged into the mountainside. That’s the Calico Ridge neighborhood you’d be looking at, in case you’ve ever wondered. (Calico Ridge, as far as I know, is not part of Cadence.) But once you get on the trail, you’ll see similar disharmony in the scenery, because there, too, there are homes clustered across mountains, namely the Heritage portion of the Cadence project. Specifically, the homes and associated power lines are visible near the Rainbow Gardens Weir on the trail, as well as from across the wash by the Three Kids Weir.

Adding to the haphazardness of it all, the Cadence project was developed atop a former toxic waste dump—namely, a magnesium plant. The environmental brochure on the Cadence website states that cleanup efforts included more than $60 million for research, testing and analyses, and another $75 million was spent during the land restoration phase.

The Cadence project’s website boasts that its residents will  “have a getaway right in the backyard of your new Cadence home” to access the wetlands. But unfortunately, it detracts from the scenic aspect of it all, among other things.