Irwin Molasky

Irwin Molasky (1927- ) is a Las Vegas, Nevada real estate developer and chairman of the Molasky Group of Companies. He was involved in many major Las Vegas development projects including Paradise Palms, Sunrise Hospital, Nathan Adelson Hospice, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the Boulevard Mall, Bank of America Plaza, Regency Towers, and Park Towers.

Born in Ohio around 1927, Molasky attended military high school and was enlisted in the late 1940s. He later took classes at Ohio State University, but did not pursue a degree because he had to work to support himself. Molasky worked his way up in the construction business, and built his first apartment building at age 19.

Molasky moved to Las Vegas in 1951 where he co-founded Paradise Development with Merv Adelson and built Paradise Palms, the first master-planned community in Clark County. Molasky and Adelson were also partners in several projects with Moe Dalitz and Allard Roen, including Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, the first private hospital in the area. After the death of Merv Adelson's father Nathan Adelson (who was the administrator of Sunrise) in 1978, Adelson and Molasky founded the first hospice in Southern Nevada in his honor. The partners also founded Lorimar Entertainment, a production company responsible for television shows such as The Waltons, Dallas, Eight is Enough, Full House, Perfect Strangers, and many other prime time shows.

Molasky was highly involved in the development of Maryland Parkway in Las Vegas and he donated 45 acres of land at Maryland Parkway and Flamingo Road for the development of UNLV. He was elected founding Chairman of the UNLV Foundation in 1981, and received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from UNLV in 2009. In recognition of their contributions to the Las Vegas community, the Clark County School district named Irwin and Susan Molasky Junior High School for him and his wife. Molasky was also a construction chairman of the building committee and a member of the Board of Directors of Las Vegas’s first synagogue, Temple Beth Sholom.

 In the Las Vegas area, Molasky is responsible for the region’s first enclosed mall, Boulevard Mall; the first high-rise office building in Las Vegas, Bank of America Plaza; condominiums such as Regency Towers and Park Towers; and many other shopping centers, government buildings, apartments and condominiums, and business centers. Nationally, the Molasky Group has developed four field offices for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Ohio, Oregon, Minnesota, and California and is currently constructing two more buildings for the FBI in Boston and Milwaukee. Molasky has been married twice; he divorced his first wife, Pepi Bookbinder, in 1969, and married Susan Frey in 1973. His children Steven, Andrew, Alan, and Beth are co-owners of the Molasky Group of Companies.

Sources:

Hopkins, A.D. "Irwin Molasky." Las Vegas Review-Journal. Last modified September 12, 1999. http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/irwin-molasky.

Lillis, Maggie. “Irwin Molasky’s projects helped mold Las Vegas community.” Las Vegas Review-Journal. Last modified August 2, 2011. http://www.reviewjournal.com/view/paradise/irwin-molaskys-projects-helped-mold-las-vegas-community.