Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Council to get 61 acres update

Three separate but related items on Wednesday's Las Vegas City Council agenda will provide a few angles to look at the development of a prized 61-acre parcel downtown.

The council is to get an update of the city's plan for the development of the 61 acres and will also consider a procedural move to allow continued negotiations with the Las Vegas Performing Arts Foundation as well as a proposal by the Regional Transportation Commission to create a transit hub based around the eventual monorail extension into downtown.

"If it's done right and it's done to the point where it's a major service I'm all for it," said Ward 5 Councilman Lawrence Weekly of the transit hub proposal. "I'm excited about the monorail anyway. It's a strong possibility to try and relieve a lot of the local traffic."

The proposal calls for one of two options, both centered on the eventual Bonneville Avenue stop of the monorail, which is planned to begin operations in early 2004 but not get downtown until 2007. The current bus hub is at Fourth Street and Stewart Avenue, and is used by about 33,000 passengers and 660 buses per day.

One option would place it to the west of Main Street, bounded to the north by Bridger Avenue and to the south between Clark and Bonneville avenues. The other would extend north only to about Lewis Avenue, and include a block on the east side of Main, bounded to the north by Clark and the south by Bonneville.

The land currently is privately owned. To the west it's a combination of land owned by Greyhound and Barrick Gaming, which is buying the Plaza hotel, said Ingrid Reisman, spokeswoman for the RTC. She said preliminary talks with Barrick already have begun for 1.6 of the total 6.5 to 7.5 acres that would be needed.

She said that 1.6-acre portion "is a piece we'd use in either alternative, and we would use that for some of the monorail facilities."

In the second option, securing land on the east side of Main, the project would total about 9 acres.

The project ties into the city's hopes for the 61-acre slot nearby. The city has created a master plan that calls for a medical complex to the north, an "urban village" in the middle, and the performing arts center to the south. The hub would tie the bus, monorail, and possibly light rail or Amtrak to the center of town, and ties into the city's plans for an urban center where walking, in conjunction with mass transit, is an option.

"We view that (hub proposal) as an asset to the 61 acres," said Las Vegas City Manager Doug Selby, who is scheduled to give the city an update on the master planning process. He said it's not much changed from July, when the city outlined its desires for the medical complex and performing arts center. However, he said, it will be more detailed, showing the alignments of roads, for example.

The city has not picked a developer, Selby said. "We have had discussions ... but we want to define the whole site so prospective developers know what's on the site and the conditions under which we'll ask them to develop," he said.

The performing arts center would occupy about 5 acres of the south end of the city's 61-acre site. The Las Vegas Performing Art Foundation is negotiating the terms of development for the estimated $125 million project, and Wednesday's action would extend to the end of the year the period under which the discussion can continue. Currently, the foundation has a written agreement with the city for use of the land, pending successful negotiations, and the agreement was to run out Sept. 30.

Blake Cumbers, vice president of development at Boyd Gaming and a volunteer for the board of the performing arts foundation, said the idea is to reach an agreement with the city, then start raising money for the project.

"It's a two-pronged approach. One is to finance construction and the other is to create an operating endowment to fund cultural presentations that are not necessarily economically viable, but break even or create small losses," he said.

"Hopefully by the end of year we'll get the details so we can move forward on funding aspects."

The web of separate but associated projects indicates the promise and the difficulty of downtown redevelopment. When coordinated, they can create a synergy, but only if the multiple government and private jurisdictions are able to work together, officials said.

"It's an expensive and lengthy process, but it's a process, and it's my hope that people start feeling the way we do," said Weekly. "We want to see something happen, to make it possible."

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