Monday, April 19, 2004 | 10:54 a.m.
Trying to centralize its offices now scattered across the valley in one location, Metro Police officials are still pursuing a plan to tear down the Clark County Courthouse and have a new headquarters built on the site.
Police officials are preparing a report to deliver to the County Commission to get the seven-member panel's blessing for the plan to consolidate some of Metro's far-flung operations at the courthouse site.
The courthouse, at 200 S. Third St., sits on a piece of prime real estate valued at $9.7 million, a site slated to be vacant once the courts move into their long-delayed new quarters a few blocks away.
Undersheriff Doug Gillespie said Metro is enthusiastic about the prospect of moving downtown and hopeful that the commission will approve the police department's plan for the courthouse site.
Gillespie said Sheriff Bill Young "has discussed it with the commissioners and the management of the county and the city, and everybody seems to feel that this is a good idea."
Last year three parties expressed interest in buying the parcel, but the commissioners put off making a deal so that the police department could look into the site.
But Metro's proposal faces a tough roadblock: the endless delays in finishing the Regional Justice Center, the new courthouse that is to replace the Third Street building.
The new center is nearly three years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget.
"If the decision is made that we want to proceed" with the police headquarters plan, "the timeline for when the land is going to become available is the first hurdle," Gillespie said.
The hurdle may not be cleared very soon, according to Randy Walker, director of the Clark County Aviation Department, who also oversees the Justice Center project. "We're working toward completion, but no date the contractor has given us in two years has ever been correct," he said.
The latest completion date is June 11, "but we have no confidence that that will be valid," Walker said.
Once the Justice Center is finished, the county will have six months to move out of the old courthouse and into its new quarters, "so you're not actually seeing the building used for its intended purpose until next year," Walker said.
Under Metro's plan a private developer would purchase the old courthouse site, build a police headquarters there and rent it to the police department. Gillespie said this method would allow the police force to partner with a builder it trusted. It would not have to award a contract to the lowest bidder, as is the case by law in properties the government develops itself, such as the Justice Center.
Asked whether such a contracting process would make possible the sort of bias, corruption and waste that a lowest-bidder requirement is designed to prevent, Gillespie said Metro would judge potential developers based on their "level of expertise" and "resume."
"Because of the (Justice Center), we know there'll be great scrutiny given to whoever's awarded the contract," if the commission approves Metro's plan, Gillespie said.
There are no estimates yet for how much the downtown center would cost the police force. "What we would be paying would be very similar to what we are currently paying in leases throughout the valley," Gillespie said.
Metro's administrative functions and the sheriff's office are squeezed into City Hall, and the force spends $460,000 a month to lease space in a variety of scattered satellite offices that could be moved to a new headquarters. Consolidating Metro's operations is a major priority for the sheriff.
A police headquarters downtown "would allow (Metro's) investigative functions, which are currently spread out throughout the valley, to be in what we call the justice corridor, with easy access to the jail, easy access to city offices, easy access to the courts," Gillespie said.
A study that Metro commissioned last year found that the courthouse site could accommodate the force's space needs through 2025, he said.
The city does not have a say in what the county does with the land, but favors the Metro plan, Las Vegas City Manager Doug Selby said Friday.
"We think it's a great idea. We like the idea of Metro having its headquarters in downtown Las Vegas," Selby said.
An attractive new structure on the site would be an "asset" for the city's redevelopment of downtown and a considerable improvement on the dreary old courthouse. In addition, since the building would be privately owned, it would bring in property taxes, he said.
A new police headquarters would also move Metro out of City Hall, freeing up about 70,000 square feet of potential city office space, Selby said.
"We're not anxious to push Metro out, but we could use the space," he said.
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