Midwest medical center reportedly interested in LV

Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2002 | 11:06 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Las Vegas officials were tight-lipped today about reports that a highly respected Midwest medical center is considering opening a satellite office on the former railroad property west of downtown.

The Cleveland Clinic, which has multispecialty academic medical centers in Cleveland and southern Florida, is one of several interested parties that Las Vegas has talked to about the project in the past six months, The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Associated Press reported.

"All we can say right now is that we are talking with several parties and everything is in the preliminary stages," Elaine Sanchez, spokeswoman for Mayor Oscar Goodman, said today. She declined to identify the Cleveland Clinic as one of the parties.

A spokesman for the Cleveland Clinic declined comment this morning.

Goodman, who has made the development of the 61-acre site along Interstate 15 one of the main goals of his administration, recently said he would begin meeting personally with interested parties in the wake of the failure to establish a sports stadium on the site.

A study done on the area, formerly part of the Union Pacific railroad yards, has identified it as a potential site of a teaching and research hospital.

Other possible tenants of the site include the University of Nevada School of Medicine, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which Nevada federal lawmakers are asking to put a VA hospital in Las Vegas.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is planning a walking tour Thursday of the 61-acre site with Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi and Goodman, although no major announcements are expected.

Berkley has met several times with Principi to discuss replacing the Guy clinic, which has structural problems. Principi has vowed to replace it with a larger clinic to meet the needs of Clark County's growing veterans population.

Principi is intrigued by the 61 acres but alternatively is interested in a proposal to expand veterans health care at the Mike O'Callaghan Federal Hospital at Nellis Air Force Base.

Berkley also has prodded Principi to consider constructing a full-service veterans hospital with surgical and specialty care in Las Vegas. A new clinic built on part of the 61 acres eventually could be expanded into such a facility, Berkley has said.

Deputy Las Vegas City Manager Steve Houchens told the Plain Dealer that Las Vegas may be the biggest city in the country without a medical complex that includes clinical, educational and research facilities. Las Vegas was the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan area from 1990 to 2000, showing a population increase of 83 percent, to 1.5 million.