City Council postpones vote on 61 acres

Judy Odierna

Thursday, March 6, 2003 | 8:24 a.m.

A decision to hire two companies to help create a master plan for Las Vegas' 61 acres downtown is on hold for two weeks.

The City Council postponed a vote on the contracts Wednesday after two council members expressed concerns about the project's several phases. They also wanted Mayor Oscar Goodman and Councilman Lawrence Weekly to be present for the vote.

Goodman and Weekly were in Ohio Tuesday and Wednesday touring the Cleveland Clinic and lobbying officials there to open a satellite medical facility on part of the 61 acres.

Design Workshop and Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. were to enter into an agreement for more than $600,000 to help create a master plan for the former Union Pacific Railroad yard. Goodman has called the parcel a key to downtown redevelopment.

One of the first tasks for both groups would be to hold and take part in a two-day design workshop that would put members the City Council, the City Centre Development Corp., the City Parkway Task Force and potential major stakeholders together to come up with a plan.

Councilman Michael Mack and Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald said designing how something should look before knowing what the market would bear was out of order.

"We're setting ourselves up for failure if we don't have a market analysis done first," Boggs McDonald said. "We're going down a dangerous path when we start with what we'd like to see over what is financially capable."

The city has had a difficult time trying to develop the land, which it acquired in 2000. Projects that have been envisioned for the site have included high-rise apartments, an academic medical center, a performing arts center, a park, stores and a veterans hospital.

Though they specialized in building minor league stadiums, Southwest Sports Group was selected to analyze and assess the feasibility of development on the site in 2001 and was instructed to look at every use but a stadium. After the agreement expired, Southwest Sports was officially out of the picture.

The city decided in January to handle the master planning of the 61 acres itself.

The city hired Richard Oglesby of R.O. Consulting Inc. in February to be the project administrator for $140,000.

Oglesby negotiated the agreements with Design Workshop and Kimley-Horn.

Design Workshop is an architectural engineering firm that helped develop the Commons in Denver, a 60-acre urban village built on former railroad land adjacent to downtown. It would get $424,000 to help with the Las Vegas project. If an additional consultant were needed, the consultant would be paid an hourly fee ranging from $50 to $400 an hour, depending on the person's position.

Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc., a nationwide firm specializing in projects involving infrastructure such as sewer lines and streets, would be paid $180,000. Should Kimley-Horn need to send someone from Las Vegas, the consultant would be paid a per diem rate of up to $1,000.