Neonopolis gets new manager

Richard N. Velotta and Sito Negron

Friday, March 26, 2004 | 11:06 a.m.

Neonopolis has a new boss.

CB Richard Ellis, one of the city's largest commercial real estate service providers, Thursday was named the new property manager of Neonopolis, a job that had been done in house by Prudential Real Estate Investors, owner of the retail component of the downtown Las Vegas spot.

Prudential had been managing Neonopolis itself since late February when property manager Chardell Steves left. Steves worked for JSS Advisors, a New York-based firm.

CB Richard Ellis will explore a wide range of options -- including possibly developing gaming components -- to drive traffic to the troubled retail center. Neonopolis, a three-story, 236,500-square-foot retail and entertainment plaza that opened in October 2002, has struggled to attract and keep tenants.

Mark Bouchard, managing director of CB Richard Ellis Las Vegas, which has brokered more than $2.8 billion in commercial real estate transactions in the past five years, said today that his company will look locally, regionally and nationally for tenants to make the $99 million mall at the east end of the Fremont Street Experience succeed.

Bouchard said it was premature to predict what types of companies would make the most sense for Neonopolis, but that he and his team, asset service directors Kathy Rose and Jennifer Campbell, would be working with Prudential, existing tenants and one of the mall's biggest investors, the City of Las Vegas, to form a successful plan.

City officials are happy about the management change, but still are concerned about leasing issues involving a nightclub that wanted space at Neonopolis.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman sent Prudential a Feb. 23 letter stating that the city considered them in default of the contract that allowed them to build Neonopolis. He sent the letter, in part, because Neonopolis did not lease space to Donald Troxel, an Ohio businessman who planned to open a gay cabaret-style nightclub modeled after his successful venture in Dayton, Ohio.

The letter gave the operators of Neonopolis 30 days to deliver an audited statement of net operating income for the mall's first year, and to explain the discrimination against potential tenants and its failure to develop an "urban entertainment center" at the complex, which is at Fremont and Las Vegas Boulevard.

"This (new leasing and management team) settles nothing as far as I'm concerned," Goodman said today. He said that the company has until Monday to respond to his letter.

He did say the new management and leasing team was a move forward for Neonopolis.

"This shows they recognize that property needs good management and I'm happy that recognition has finally taken place," Goodman said. "I hope they'll be able to get the type of tenants that get people into downtown."

Other downtown tenants showed support for the switch, but were tentative about endorsing a gaming component that could help the mall's cash flow.

"Anytime you have fresh eyes looking at an opportunity to help downtown Las Vegas, especially from a proven business leader, we feel it's good for all businesses downtown," said Maurice Wooden, chief operating officer of the Golden Nugget, which recently got new ownership in partners Tim Poster and Tom Breitling.

Rob Stillwell, a spokesman for Boyd Gaming Corp., which owns three hotel-casinos in downtown Las Vegas, said the Neonopolis weekend crowd is usually filled with young people who go to movies at a theater complex at the mall and to Jillian's, a popular recreation-based property. Officials would probably be concerned about the appropriateness of a gaming component in a venue that attracts so many youth, he said.