Reviving downtown called top priority

Erin Neff

Thursday, Jan. 6, 2000 | 11:13 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council resolved Wednesday to focus the bulk of its attention this year on downtown revitalization efforts.

City staff presented the council with the key points of the 2000-2005 strategic plan -- including a new emphasis on "reurbanization."

But the council made it clear it didn't want to be involved with planning for planning's sake alone.

"I don't want to have workshops to have workshops," Councilman Michael McDonald said.

"I've been very frustrated with this," he added, referring specifically to what he called "grave errors" in city revitalization efforts.

City Manager Virginia Valentine agreed.

"We believe we haven't done enough," she said.

Mayor Oscar Goodman reiterated his calls for greater accountability in downtown revitalization efforts, lamenting that he "hasn't seen one stick go in the ground" since he took office.

Goodman asked that members of the private sector City Centre Development Corp. board give the council a briefing on revitalization efforts at the council's Jan. 19 meeting.

Valentine instead suggested that both CCDC members and representatives of the Fremont Street Experience be invited to the city's strategic planning session on downtown revitalization -- scheduled for sometime in February.

Downtown has seen a number of planned projects fail over the years and has been resting much of its current revitalization efforts on the planned Neonopolis entertainment center adjacent to the Fremont Street Experience.

The movie theater tenant that was to anchor Neonopolis was forced to withdraw after the bankruptcy of its parent company. Now Neonopolis, originally scheduled to open in November, is without any replacement theater and is having difficulty leasing its retail space.

Goodman has since set a February deadline to see progress in the project before he decides to "take it over."

The city also recently took a hit when Opus West Corp. announced it would not be building a Class A office tower on land near the Clark County Government Center.

Some have speculated that Opus pulled out, in part, because of a deal the city's Redevelopment Agency was planning to make with the Pauls Corp., a rival developer.

The council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, held the planned development agreement with the Pauls Corp. for two weeks.