Editorial: Land deal is no deal

Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 | 8:53 a.m.

Two weeks ago Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and City Manager Douglas Selby confirmed that discussions were under way to build a new City Hall on a portion of the 61 downtown acres the city bought five years ago, which has so far not attracted any private development. That would have been a good time to suspend preparations for expanding the existing City Hall at Stewart Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard.

For almost a year, the city has been buying parcels east of City Hall, across Las Vegas Boulevard. Plans seemed solid for the city to build a six-story office building there, to ease the overcrowding at City Hall and to save money now being spent to lease office space. The city had spent $4.3 million to acquire some of the parcels it needed for the expansion and was talking of spending about $40 million to construct the new building, with work beginning in June.

Although the news of the possible move to the 61 acres came as a big surprise, it was announced seriously and taken seriously. Dr. Robert Fielden, land-use critic for the local National Public Radio station, for example, thought the idea was terrific. So with this real possibility on the table, the city should have held off on spending more money on the expansion plan.

But the city this week budgeted another $1.3 million to buy three more parcels, for parking space. And the talk of building a whole new City Hall on the 61 acres isn't the only reason to question this decision. For its money, the city would get less than half an acre. One parcel was bought in 1992 for $112,000, another in 2000 for $72,700 and the other in 2001 for $197,000. Altogether, the parcels were purchased privately for $381,700. If the sale goes through, the parcels combined would realize a tidy 240 percent return -- at the expense of city taxpayers.

It's not only the math that is bothersome. On Tuesday Goodman said the city would probably wait until there is a decision on the 61-acres idea before actually buying the parcels. But on Wednesday he suggested the parcels would be a good investment no matter what.

In our view, the city should hold off on buying the parcels, both because of the 61-acres possibility and because of the deal itself, which sounds to us like a transaction for a certain bridge in Brooklyn.