City of Henderson likely to buy three downtown shops

Jeffrey Libby

Thursday, March 1, 2001 | 11:26 a.m.

Judee Foster was born on the craps table of a jazz club in 1948, daughter of a dancer and a union musician, and she says the old Henderson downtown she grew up in was never meant to be another Green Valley.

The Henderson native, who has raised, saved and sold exotic birds for four years at her noisy, packed Water Street shop, will likely have a new landlord Tuesday -- City Hall.

Foster says she's concerned that with the city's plans to revitalize the old downtown, the city may not renew her lease when it runs out a year from now.

City Council members are expected to approve purchase of three Water Street properties for about $550,000 Tuesday night. Along with Foster's storefront, the city will likely buy 26 Water St., which houses an embroidery shop and a gun shop. The gun shop owner could not be reached for comment.

"They say they want to refurbish the old town of Henderson. Well, we're not Green Valley," Foster said, referring to the upscale master-planned community west of U.S. 95. "I fill a void in people's homes. I can't tell you how many people would tell you that. They had nothing in their home. And yet I'm considered an undesirable business."

Mari Rene Alu, who runs Monograms, Magic and More, the neighboring embroidery shop, doesn't share Foster's concern.

"The city has said they will help us," Alu said. "It's not like they just want to get rid of everyone. Everything the city is trying to do will be a benefit to us."

Alu said she looks forward to the day when the tour buses that stop daily at the Eldorado Casino, two blocks down the street, have more shops to lure foot traffic north past her door.

That kind of success would raise land values in an area considered blighted by the city, but considered just fine by Foster. Raising land values is one of the stated goals of the redevelopment agency.

Foster worries she may not only lose the blue-collar city she knows, but she may not be able to pay the higher rents.

She pays $1,000 a month for 4,000 square feet of office space, a part of which her daughter has converted for use as a tae kwondo studio.

Alu had little sympathy for that concern.

"If you run a business, rent is your No. 1 expense. If you pay $500 or $1,000, you have to take that into consideration," Alu said.

Bob Wilson, manager of the Redevelopment Agency, said he cannot guarantee rents won't go up as new building projects get under way.

But if City Hall considers Foster's business undesirable, Wilson said he didn't realize it.

"Not even close," Wilson said. "We're working very hard to keep our current tenants and expand from there. If a building goes down anywhere on Water Street, we'll find a place they (the businesses) think they'd be successful in. We don't want to lose anybody."

Wilson said quirky businesses like Foster's and her daughter's could actually provide the element that makes the redevelopment effort work.

"Most successful places are the ones that appear to have a messy history," Wilson said. "Some architects build it in for that reason."

With the likely purchase of the two properties Tuesday, Wilson will come a step closer to completing a long-term goal in his own agency's history.

If the deal is approved, the city would then own 20 of 23 commercial and residential properties within a four-acre area at the southwest corner of Water Street and Victory Road. The redevelopment agency has been working on creating a "package" there since it was formed in 1995.

"It's not a bad-looking little piece of development," Wilson said.