Editorial: New downtown park is an important asset

Thursday, Jan. 16, 2003 | 8:51 a.m.

Earlier this week the city of Las Vegas opened a 2-acre park behind City Hall. It's not exactly a new park, though, since it sits on a portion of what was the city's first park built in 1933. Over time, however, the first urban park was eaten up by the need for land to build U.S. 95, fire department offices and ultimately a parking lot. But it was an excellent idea to tear up parking spaces and replace them with grass, trees, walking paths, benches, picnic tables, a fountain and a small stage for cultural performances.

The park's size is modest, but it is just the kind of step that eventually could help renovate the downtown area. Sure, getting more suburbanites to patronize downtown businesses is integral to the urban core's revitalization, just as it is essential to lure more businesses to locate downtown. But it also is critical to establish a sense of community, and that requires getting more people to live in the downtown area. And if you want people to move back downtown, they have to feel safe. In addition, they'll want to be close to grocery stores, churches and, yes, parks -- things that most of us take for granted where we live now. A vision seems to be emerging of what the downtown should be like, and that is an encouraging trend we hope continues.