Editorial: A gamble that will need help

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002 | 8:59 a.m.

Thirty-five years ago the Commercial Center on East Sahara Avenue was known as a concert venue -- the Doors were among the bands that performed there -- and as a place to go if you wanted to buy a Steinway piano, do some ice skating or get a sandwich at gourmet delis. When it opened on April 23, 1964, the moderately upscale Commercial Center was hailed as Las Vegas' largest shopping center. In the vernacular of the times, it was hip.

By the 1980s, however, the Commercial Center was hurling toward its destiny as the quintessential image of urban blight. It still had a few dynamic headlines left, such as when billionaire and presidential candidate Ross Perot held a rally there in 1992, and when it became known in 1997 that America's then-most wanted man, killer Andrew Cunanan, had hung out in a gay bar and in a men's spa there the year before. But mostly by 2000 the Commercial Center had simply sunk to the level of quiet neglect -- a locale for sex businesses and the scene of hundreds of low-profile police calls for gunfire, gang activity, drag racing, drugs and vagrancy.

Yet some nostalgic charm remained, enough to keep a few of the good ethnic businesses from moving out and enough to inspire a few optimistic businesses to move in. Two years ago Commercial Center businesses sued Clark County to renew its original agreement to maintain the parking lot and sidewalks, and they undertook a strong effort to make the place presentable. Today the 26 businesses remaining are contemplating a proposed tax on themselves to fund a $3.6 million renovation.

Special improvement districts, as the Commercial Center would become under such a tax, are a gamble. The cost of improvements is often underestimated, and this leads to cost-cutting and disappointment with the finished project. And there is no guarantee that building renovations and more attractive landscaping will drive the criminal elements elsewhere. Yet the alternative -- to do nothing -- is worse. Certainly, if the Commercial Center were being built today, its parking lot would not resemble a prison yard and the buildings would convey more openness. If the businesses do agree to a special tax on themselves, the county and Metro Police should be willing to offer additional support to ensure as much success as possible.