Plaza may hold key to downtown future

Judy Odierna

Monday, Dec. 30, 2002 | 11:02 a.m.

The growls and fumes of Greyhound buses welcome visitors as they arrive at the Plaza on Main Street.

The hotel's elevator is slow, the carpet worn and dirty. The aroma and clouds of cigarette smoke hover over a cluttered casino containing penny slot machines.

The Ritz this isn't, but it once had aspirations of being a first-class resort that would breathe new life into a declining downtown.

When first opened in 1971 by Frank Scott, the Plaza's 66,000-square-foot casino was the largest in Southern Nevada. Then-Mayor Oran Gragson hailed the hotel as new evidence of a revitalized faith in the future of downtown.

An impending sale of the now-aging hotel -- along with the Gold Spike, the Western and the Las Vegas Club -- has reignited talk of the Plaza taking a central role in the area.

The key to the Plaza is as familiar as the real-estate adage, "location, location, location." The property is nestled between the Fremont Street Experience and 61 acres of undeveloped city-owned land where redevelopment officials dream of seeing big projects take root. Behind the 61 acres are parcels that are to become a world-class furniture mart and an outlet mall.

The promise is in the investment Barrick Gaming Corp. says it plans to put into the properties it is buying for $82 million.

"Naturally we wouldn't be buying (the Plaza) if we didn't feel it was a tremendous asset," said Stephen Crystal, Barrick's president and general counsel. "It's a treasure in downtown that needs to be enhanced and better integrated into other properties."

But the obstacles are many. Not only is the hotel in poor condition, but its main strength is also its weakness. Main Street serves as a four-lane asphalt divide between the Fremont Street Experience and the Plaza. And the hotel currently has no access to the parcels behind it.

"It just acts as a total barrier to connect to anything on the other side of the tracks," said Richard Beckman, associate professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who recommends the new owners raze the hotel and start over.

But the great challenge for the Plaza is one that faces all downtown properties: overcoming the perception of what downtown has become.

"A lot needs to be changed in the mindset of the local resident, that's the real challenge," said Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno. "Areas get a reputation that linger once circumstances have changed."

Barrick officials don't talk about the shortcomings, though they seem aware of them. They focus on the possibilities.

"There's the potential to create a property with two front doors," Crystal said. "It is one of the few properties that has the capability to expand with the six acres adjacent to the Plaza. I won't discuss the specific plans for expansion, but that makes a special asset that much more unique."

Just a stone's throw from the Plaza, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and city planners are still searching for their own special asset: A developer with a vision, and the money, to create a centerpiece for downtown on the 61 acres of land behind the Plaza. It's a subject that comes up weekly at the mayor's press conferences.

Earlier this year a study of the property determined that the land is a prime site for an academic medical center, residential housing, office space or a performing arts center. Goodman has also said he would like to see an urban park in the image of New York's Central Park on the site.

Recently much of Goodman's talk about the site has revolved around discussions with the Cleveland Clinic. Hopes are that the acclaimed Midwest medical center will build a teaching and research hospital. The Cleveland Clinic would not comment on the talks.

But while the study said that a medical center would spur other development, including retail and residential, Eadington said it would do little to attract tourists and little for the gaming industry.

"My gut reaction is that it sounds more wishful than realistic," Eadington said. "They already have created some business in the area, so you have to ask does it really have that much of an impact? It's not likely to save the downtown casino industry."

Historian and preservationist Liz Warren agrees that a medical center won't help, because it targets the wrong people. The site needs development that will draw residents downtown, like a civic center or performing arts hall, she says.

"You need individual, free-standing places to give choices to the people who live here," she said. "You're not going to get it with a medical center, and I have enough shopping centers, thank you. But I like to go to the theater and concerts."

While plans for the 61 acres are still more hopeful than firm, other plans for adjacent properties are moving toward reality.

The owners of the World Market Center, which would put a mega-furniture outlet, furnishing showrooms, a convention center and pavilion in a 1.25 million-square-foot tower, had signed leases for 80 percent of the first phase by May. The developers say the project will employ 1,500 people and draw 1 million visitors a year.

Another deal to build a 430,000-square-foot outlet mall on 40 acres next door was closed in June by Chelsea Property Group, which is partnering with Simon Property Group, owner and operator of the Forum Shops at Caesars.

A $13.5 million upgrade for the Fremont Street Experience canopy is also in the works to help the area.

Add the Plaza sale to all of that, and many people are more optimistic about the future of downtown than they have been in a long time.

"It is very positive; it gives hope," said Bill Thompson, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has studied the gaming industry since 1980. "It looks like a real deal where people want to buy into the downtown and make it a place where people want to go."

It's a good start, Thompson said, but much more will have to be done to make downtown and the Plaza reach their potential.

A proposed extension of the Strip monorail to downtown is a good place to start, he said. The Regional Transportation Commission has plans to start building the extension by 2004, with stops just south of the Plaza and at Fremont Street and Stewart Avenue, provided it can line up the funding.

"If you shoot the monorail to the Plaza or to Cashman Field and the Convention Center, then everyone going to Cashman would look at the Plaza and the Las Vegas Club as places to stay," Thompson said.

Thompson also suggests eliminating some existing facilities around the hotel, such as the Greyhound bus station. Moving the bus depot is a priority for the mayor and some of the major downtown stakeholders.

"There's no question the bus station needs to go," Goodman said. "Any (transportation) station has to be consistent with the development going on around it."

Mark Paris, president of the Fremont Street Experience LLC, said removing the bus station is critical not only to the Plaza but to the entire redevelopment of downtown.

"My experience has been that a lot of people get off that bus with their last dollars," Paris said. "It isn't the best circumstance to have people who are destitute in that area."

Thompson also says the Plaza could benefit from acquiring an identity, similar to the properties on the Las Vegas Strip.

"Their identity was the train station, and there's no train station anymore," Thompson said. "Maybe get the identity of the Fremont Street Experience into the hotel."

One identity being tossed around by Barrick Gaming is a resort that would cater to Las Vegas' growing Latino population, but plans are not firm yet.

Thompson also said Plaza could also do some simple things to make some quick improvements, like getting rid of its penny slot machines and cleaning up the place.

"The Union Plaza's Center Stage restaurant needs to wash their windows," he said. "That one isn't too hard."