Gehry boosts development

Wednesday, March 2, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.

The announcement that a facility at Union Park will be designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry is perhaps the biggest stride in what has been a nearly two-decade-long struggle to revive a piece of downtown land.

Formerly called the 61 acres, the former longtime Union Pacific Railroad yard in western downtown has been the subject of several proposed designs calling for everything from casinos to a ballpark to a medical center to a performing arts center to a high-rise urban village.

The proposed development took another dip on its roller coaster ride last July when one of the proposed anchor tenants, the well-regarded Cleveland Clinic, rejected Mayor Oscar Goodman's pitch to open an academic medical center on the site.

Goodman vowed, however, that the medical center, as well as the urban village and arts center, would still be built there.

In 1986, the year the city formed its redevelopment agency, Las Vegas officials began trying to wrest the property from the railroad company.

By 1988, city officials were handing out citations alleging numerous safety violations to force the railroad off the site. In October of that year, city officials released an artist's rendering, envisioning resorts and casinos on the land once it was vacated by the railroad.

"It brings the area a little closer to what our master plan calls for -- casinos, restaurants, commercial and entertainment," then-Mayor Ron Lurie told the Sun.

Eventually, Union Pacific moved the rail yards and the city obtained the property in 2000.

It was discovered, however, that the land was a "brownfield" -- property that is difficult to develop because of environmental contamination.

Not only were the 61 acres poisoned by spilled fuel and hazardous debris, so was 140 acres around it -- all of which has now been environmentally cleaned. At least 50 of those acres adjacent to Union Park serve as the site of the under-construction Furniture Mart project.

By 2001, plans for new hotel-casinos had been scrapped. Instead, four developers came forward with projects calling for various uses -- among them a medical center, a cultural arts center and a Major League Baseball park.

The one that most impressed the city -- and the concept that arguably wound up delaying the proposed development even longer -- was the ballpark, which was to have been completed and opened by this year.

After much discussion and study, the ballpark plan fell through in October 2002, prompting an angry Goodman to declare that he would take an active role in "overseeing development" of the 61 acres.