HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT Developers pose for a groundbreaking at the new Heritage Square shopping center. They are, from left, Carl Moore from Ace Hardware, Bruce Floyd from Floyd Construction, Caroline Sandoval from 1st International Bank, Mike Floyd, also from Floyd Construction, and Russ Meads from Double M Construction. Advertisement

Members of the Floyd and Moore families, long-time owners of the Ace hardware store, didn't waste any time starting construction on the Heritage Plaza shopping center after the official groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday.

In fact, graders were already busy leveling the 4.3-acre site across from the existing Ace Hardware store on Loop Road, while a foundation had already been excavated for building A, an 18,000-square-foot shopping center along Carlton Street.

Three buildings totaling 50,200 square feet will be constructed all the way back to the Carlotta Plaza on Highway 160: two shopping malls and a 7,200-square-foot restaurant building in the middle.

"The whole concept behind this thing is an upscale shopping destination. We first started putting it together and thinking about how there's no place in Pahrump you can just go sit under covered patios, have a cup of coffee and go from shop to shop to shop," said Carl Moore.

Landscaped patios will connect each of the several stores in each shopping center.

The property is part of land bought way back in 1962 by Ron and Charlotte Floyd, when Pahrump only had 200 to 300 residents. The Carlotta Mall was a motel back then, Mike Floyd said, recalling it was the only structure on Highway 160.

Ron and Charlotte Floyd moved to Pahrump in 1962 from Chowchilla, Calif., where Ron began work as a well driller by day and at the cotton gin at night. The Floyds then set up a tent in the backyard of their home called Ron Floyd Pump Co. and began selling plumbing and pipe supplies. It was done on the honor system; customers left money on the counter if no one was there.

By the late 1970s the Floyds opened up a store at a larger location in the Carlotta Mall on Highway 160 where they began selling PVC pipe, electrical supplies and garden hoses. They moved into the current Ace Hardware building on Loop Road in 1986.

Classic Homes will build the new Heritage Square shopping center. Co-owner Russ Meads said the exterior will be a mixture from shop to shop, with some cultured stone, some stucco and some weathered copper metals along with old-fashioned wood exterior.

"It will be a very, very good project. It will be a one of a kind in Pahrump," Meads said.

Moore said Loop Road and Carlton Street will be widened with curb and gutter as part of the project.

Nick Moore said the family has been working on planning the project for three years. He said they have received verbal commitments from stores wanting to lease spAce in the shopping center. An existing store in a small shopping center south of Ace Hardware on Loop Road, Threadz, is already confirmed as a tenant, he said,

"We're talking to some major restaurant brands," is all he would say about the possible eatery to be located in the center building.

"It's more of a California mission style. It's got a lot of iron work on the facade," Nick Moore said of the shopping centers.

Family members admitted it's a good time for a building project, with the current slowdown in construction. By the time it's finished before New Years Day 2009, the Moores and Floyds expect the pace of construction to have picked back up.

Eventually they plan to build more shopping centers as part of a second and third phase, demolishing structures that now hold Shear Talent Hair and Nails and Cup of Joe and Mo' on the north side of Carlton Street. The small strip mall on the southeast corner of Loop Road and Carlton Street that currently houses Threadz will also eventually be demolished.

As Mike Floyd quipped while he held a gold plated shovel, "We're optimists. You have to be an optimist to be an old-timer from Pahrump."