LV City Council set to vote on purchase of West Las Vegas land

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 | 8:37 a.m.

The former site of a popular West Las Vegas barbeque restaurant would be sold to the Las Vegas government under a proposed deal the City Council is scheduled to vote on Wednesday.

The restaurant, H&H Bar-B-Q & More, burned down in August 2003, and since then the shopping plaza it resided in has also been torn down, leaving an empty piece of land at the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Washington Avenue.

The council will decide Wednesday whether to buy the 1.6 acres for $850,000, which is $100,000 less than the current owner paid for the land when the shopping center and restaurant were there. The price is also more than some nearby land has sold for within the last year or so.

Scott Adams, director of the city's Office of Business Development, said the deal appears to be good one for the city.

"For the redevelopment of the corridor and the widening project, it makes sense. Clearly some of that will be taken, and so that was another reason this was a good time to buy it," Adams said, referring to plans to widen Martin Luther King Boulevard.

The land is also more valuable than other pieces because it is on a corner of two busy streets, and other nearby commercial properties went for comparable prices, Adams said.

"It seems like a reasonable purchase," Adams said, adding that if approved the city would probably hold the property until the road-widening project is under way.

Adams wasn't sure which specific properties were examined to determine what a fair price for the 1.6 acres should be, but he said his staff looked at transactions in a large area around the MLK and Washington intersection.