Columnist Dean Juipe: Mayor says downtown arena likely

Dean Juipe

Monday, April 15, 2002 | 9:50 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

The camera was facing a nondescript portion of Third Street and Oscar Goodman was up at the ring apron and lobbying for an improved view.

Downtown Las Vegas was on display to a national television audience and the mayor wondered, rightfully at that, why the lens wasn't aimed toward the colorful and more scenic Fremont Street and its $64-million Experience.

Goodman had come to a crossroads. Try as he may to get the crew with the Showtime cable network to aim its camera up Fremont and not along Third as it televised an outdoor boxing card Saturday afternoon, his plea failed to generate any constructive change.

If there was a symbolic importance to his gesture, it's that in spite of his efforts to always have Las Vegas look its best and eventually emerge as a major-league sports city, it may forever be seen in a less flattering light.

"I'd still like to think I'm a major-league mayor," Goodman said after appeasing a number of spectators (and ring-card girls) who were after him for pictures, attention and the like. A perpetual grin on his face, he complied to a succession of requests with an exuberance that bordered on outright glee.

The mayor likes sports and has envisioned a day in which Las Vegas has a full complement of top-of-the-line professional teams. Yet he realizes that goal is at least a decade or two away and that his "legacy" -- as he so often refers to it -- is more apt to be a medical center behind the Plaza than some sparkling stadium, plush arena or passel of new teams.

A firm called Southwest Sports Group has proposed incorporating a minor-league baseball stadium into a package of other businesses on the parcel in question, and Goodman said he'll be visiting Memphis and the Dallas area within 30 days to review similar projects on SSG's drawing board. But it appears unlikely he will support the stadium idea here.

However, a mid-sized arena to be built across from the Main Street Station has his blessing and may come to fruition.

"That looks to be a go," Goodman said. "The builder, the architect and the company that will sell the bonds have all been identified. But they've got to get started soon, because if it can't be completed by October of 2003 then I don't think it will get built."

The date is pivotal in that the developer wants a Western Hockey League franchise as an anchor tenant. Also expressing interest in taking up residence there are the men's and women's basketball teams from the Community College of Southern Nevada, and Goodman said an Arena Football League team would be procured as well.

"Half the people at City Hall want to see a hockey team down here," Goodman said, "and I think the arena will be built. There'll be some additional enthusiasm for the project once the bricks and mortar start to go up.

"People will come to it once it's built."

It's a modest goal, this quaint arena with affordable tickets to an array of events, and it's one that has been amended a time or two since Goodman took office. The grandiose has given way to the practical.

Yet seeing the mayor treat it with enthusiasm and a certain reverence was enlightening. If this arena is the best he can do, then he's going to be hands-on about it.