Improved facility still center of attention

Denise Cardinal

Friday, Jan. 16, 1998 | 10:43 a.m.

For five years, Cassandra Lewis has watched the Meadows Village neighborhood change.

As the director of the Tots & Me and Teacher & Me program at the Stupak Community Center, she's been able to watch the children of the neighborhood grow up.

"I had the chance to leave, but I decided to stay," she said.

Her reason: she loves it too much.

"This center is the heart and soul of this community," she said. "The programs are a lifeline for the people here."

And the city of Las Vegas, her employer, knows it.

Rather than turn its cheek to the high-crime, low-rent neighborhood that was once referred to as "Naked City," the city installed a new modular building at the center -- giving it two more classrooms for the 200 students who come to the center every day for English as a Second Language classes.

It's a gift that is appreciated by the staff of the center, like Lewis, and also by the residents, like Alfredo Valiente -- a 16-year-old who has lived in Meadows Village since he was 9.

"There's too much drugs," he said of the streets around his home and the Stupak Center. "But it's getting better."

One reason, Valiente said, is the center, where he also volunteers to help tutor the elementary students who live in the neighborhood.

"Almost everyone who lives here comes through here," he said about the center and its programs, which run the gamut from senior citizens events to the after-school programs. There's even a Clark County Library housed within the building.

"Those new buildings are like the best thing that's been done here," Valiente said. "It gives everyone more room and now we don't have to share everything."

But getting the buildings installed, much less in a timely fashion, wasn't that easy.

First slated to open a couple of months ago, it took longer than expected for water hookups, pushing the project back to December. Before that, the modules were promised to be installed in October. Previous to that, they were scheduled for completion in June.

The first delay came about because the city didn't -- and still doesn't -- possess the title to the land the center sits on. Bob Stupak, former chairman of the Stratosphere Corp., declared bankruptcy for the hotel-casino where all of his assets -- including the title to the land -- are being held until the bankruptcy proceedings are finished.

After deciding to build a center with modular buildings, which can be removed, the city ended up using the federal grant money earmarked for the center to build ballfields in eastern Las Vegas. In exchange, the city parks department would fund and manage the Stupak Center project.

Once the project's builder was chosen, it was discovered that the city didn't conduct the proper bid process. A different bid process was started, and the same builder, Williams Scotsman Construction Co., was selected the second time because it had already started the process and could finish the modules sooner.

But for the workers at the center, and the hundreds of residents who use it, the past doesn't matter.

"Really, it's just a blessing that the new buildings are here," Lewis said. "It's a blessing."