Status of Owens Avenue project questioned

Sito Negron

Thursday, Oct. 7, 2004 | 8:29 a.m.

Developer John Edmond may or may not have met the condition for continuing his attempt to develop the city-owned parcel at the corner of H Street and Owens Avenue, the City Council was told Wednesday.

Scott Adams, the director of the city Office of Business Development, said that while Edmond filed documents indicating that he had the financing and was ready to pour concrete, "We have not received evidence of that."

Adams said his office would take the next several days to assess whether the work was starting, a comment that provoked a rebuke from Councilman Lawrence Weekly, who represents the area.

"The site looks today like it did last week," Weekly said, citing photos taken by his staff of the site. There was, he said, only an empty water truck, "an old raggedy tractor," and a trailer "that probably came down from the Sky-Vue (a problem-plagued mobile home park torn down by the city)."

Edmond is attempting to build a $55 million retail center in the heart of West Las Vegas, an economically stagnant area near Bonanza Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard that has not seen much new construction over the years. The deal involved the donation of city land, but included deadlines -- which were extended at least twice -- by which he was to begin construction.

The original completion date was February 2003. The last deadline was Tuesday.

That extension came after an emotional appeal by members of Edmond's Nucleus/WSA Management development team, who asked the council to give them one last chance at the July 21 Las Vegas City Council meeting. They said the 20-acre project would bring 250 permanent jobs paying at least $8 an hour and would produce $22 million in retail sales and $1.54 million in sales tax.

The council, going against Weekly's wishes, voted 6-1 to allow the extension, which ran out Tuesday. The council also required a total of $150,000 in good faith deposits.

Even though Mayor Oscar Goodman was the one who set the most recent "drop-dead" deadlines, as he called them, he hardly said a word during Wednesday's discussion.

Weekly had plenty to say, however, He turned his ire to Adams, telling him that "when you came in you had that new car smell ... that's gone. You should have your hands around this."

Adams replied by saying that his office would look at the evidence of what work was done Tuesday "and make a decision accordingly."

Late Wednesday it was unclear whether Edmond met the condition.