City to build $14 million parking garage

Tuesday, July 28, 1998 | 11:01 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council has approved an amendment to the $100 million Neonopolis@Fremont Street Experience retail project that will commit the city to building a $14 million underground parking garage.

Also at Monday's public meeting, in related action, the City Council agreed to fast track a bill that will allow part of the Fremont Street parking garage to be leased out for future retail development.

Plans also call for the city to commit use of the parking lot directly south of City Hall on Stewart Avenue for the 264,000-square-foot, shopping, restaurant and entertainment facility.

The council, acting as the Downtown Redevelopment Agency, unanimously approved an amendment that will allow the city to go ahead with plans for a two-tier, 600-plus-space subterranean parking garage for Neonopolis.

"The city will receive the (parking fees) income from the underground parking garage," City Councilman Gary Reese said of the facility.

Mayor Jan Laverty Jones called this latest redevelopment move "one of the single most important developments in the city."

She said the effort is to attract investments into the downtown area.

Meanwhile, the proposed bill will allow the downtown casinos, acting as the Fremont Street Experience Parking Corp., to lease out the city's 1,430-space "big red" garage.

Councilman Arnie Adamsen, a longtime banking and title company executive, explained that the effort will "subordinate" the city's first deed of trust in the parking garage as security for the commercial plan.

This, he said, will enable the downtown casino property owners to put a lien on it so that they can make improvements and provide spaces for retail tenants. The casino owners are expected to secure a commercial bank loan to finance those improvements.

Rental fees paid by the tenants will be used to reimburse the city for the costs associated with the acquisition of the parking garage site.

In the event of default, the city would have the right to repurchase the deed of trust, city officials said.

Adamsen says he understands that just the bottom floor of the $23 million garage, which in its busiest times is just 30 percent full, will be leased out as retail space while the rest of the floors will be used for parking.

On Monday, the city attorney's office asked that the bill be fast tracked. That means it will be heard by a recommending committee next Monday and then can be passed as early as the Aug. 10 council meeting.

Jones assigned Councilmen Larry Brown and Michael McMcDonald as the two-man committee that will hear comments on the measure.

Neonopolis, to be located at the northeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street, is scheduled to open late in 2000.

It will include a 16-screen movie theatre operated by Mann Theatres, the anchor tenant for the project. That company plans to use the parking lot south of City Hall for its part of the project.

Neonopolis will force 15 residents and three businesses to relocate. Between $130,000 and $150,000 has been allocated to pay for the relocation of those residents and businesses.