Signs of life: New businesses blossom on Water Street, but supper club sign has some concerned

Jeffrey Libby

Thursday, July 26, 2001 | 10:56 a.m.

Downtown Henderson, long viewed by city planners as a lackluster backwater with little to attract shoppers, suddenly has something worth protecting.

Redevelopment agency planners say they knew it when they saw the sign unveiled two weeks ago for Rick's Supper Club at the intersection of Lake Mead Drive and Water Street -- the main entry point to the old downtown.

Framed by rapidly blinking lights at night, the box-lit sign depicts a scantily clad woman sitting in a martini glass and smoking a cigar.

Rick's is the sixth business to open a storefront along Water Street in six months. It's also the largest, with seating for 200 people. It's the latest in an unexpected trend planners say they want to nurture. Just two businesses have closed their doors along the one-mile stretch of road during that same time, they say.

But planners don't like Rick's sign.

Mary Kay Peck, director of community development, provided the most diplomatic take on the sign that others rated as awful, tasteless and cheap.

"The quality of the food and atmosphere are not accurately reflected in the sign outside," Peck said. "The sign doesn't do the club justice."

In the recent past, it was a different story. Almost all new businesses, and their signs, were worth nurturing. Entrepeneurs along Water Street, who pay less than half the rents of those in Green Valley, could slide a new plastic panel in a box-lit sign outside their store and the city called it good.

But today, those same versatile boxes, which glow in the early evening above almost every storefront along both sides of Water Street, are viewed by planners as outdated and are discouraged. Planners are phasing them out in favor of individually lit letters as part of new design standards for the downtown area. A new theme of streamlined architecture from 1930s Art Moderne is being encouraged.

"We want signs to be incorporated with the architecture rather than being a canned afterthought," Scott Majewsky, a city planner, said.

Rick Santacroce, a Las Vegas attorney and owner of the supper club, is shaking his head at the controversy caused by the sign he says his 22-year-old daughter painted at his request. Already, at least one customer has told Santacroce that his wife refused to eat at the supper club because of the sign.

"We thought the logo caught the spirit of old Henderson. You know, the martini, cigars and pretty girls. In our naivete, we didn't think the pretty girls meant anything different," he said.

Santacroce's misstep should be fixed without much problem by using a portion of $200,000 in city funds approved for improvements to downtown building facades, Bob Wilson, manager of the redevelopment agency, said.

"All these businesses want is to be successful. And all we want is for them to be successful," Wilson said. "They hear the same things from customers that we do, and if we can provide what they need, we're all there for them."

The city also intends to provide money to help new business Desert Rose Salon dress up its signage, Wilson said.

Another recent arrival to Water Street, Signs By Finish Line Graphics, is designing the sign.

"It's a question of putting up what you're selling. If your sign doesn't tell people what you do, they're not going to come in," Elaine Miller, owner of the sign store, said.

And it's not pretty girls he's selling, Santacroce acknowledged. What he's selling, he said, is a restaurant that can be a meeting place. It's a place for food that requires a wait, but is prepared for each customer, not ahead of time, he said.

The supper club has two bars and two dining rooms and a menu that includes entrees such as ahi tuna, fresh oysters, and certified Angus beef at prices ranging from $11.95 to $23.

Now all that remains is a sign that lets people with that kind of disposable income know as much as they drive by at 45 mph.