New City Hall considered for former railroad land

Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004 | 11:08 a.m.

The development of 61 acres of prime downtown real estate owned by Las Vegas may include a brand new city hall, City Manager Douglas Selby said.

The city is only in preliminary discussions with developers and officials, Selby said, but the idea is to relocate Las Vegas City Hall to a new, larger complex on the former Union Pacific railyards and to renovate the current 10-story City Hall into a residential complex.

A new government complex on the parcel just west of the railroad tracks behind the Plaza hotel would take care of the city's need to expand the current City Hall, Selby said.

For several months the city has been negotiating for property across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Fourth Street and Stewart Avenue city hall and has considered enforcing eminent domain -- taking of the land for fair market value for the public good -- in order to attain sufficient space for the city's growing needs. The city already leases space for some of its development and public works offices and wants to centralize those services into one building.

The proposed expansion would cost about $40 million, Selby said. He does not yet know how the city would go about building a new city hall.

"We need to see what this might look like and whether it is even feasible," Selby said.

One idea, however, is to restructure the current city hall into affordable condominiums to attract teachers and nurses to downtown, Selby said. The city is holding off on its real estate moves for the city hall expansion while officials consider the proposal, Selby said.

The Related Companies is working with the city to develop the 61 acres of land into what Goodman has called "the new city within a city," a place where downtown residents can live, work and play.

About 23 acres of the parcel is slated for high-rise residential building, about 3.5 acres for an urban park, close to 5 acres for a performing arts center and about 18 acres for an academic medical center.