High hopes for Chinatown include change to gaming

Stephen Curran

Friday, May 13, 2005 | 9:54 a.m.

The future of Las Vegas' fledgling Chinatown district could lie in gaming, representatives for a developer building a large mixed-use project there said Thursday.

Others, including representatives for working-class apartment dwellers, see the future in creating a safer, more residential corridor near the Strip.

The comments were made at the latest in a string of public meetings Thursday to elicit comments on the Winchester/Paradise land use plan for the massive swath of land that includes the Chinatown area.

Much of the area, now comprised primarily of low-rise strip mall properties, had in previous years been zoned industrial, a use Clark County planners say is outdated, given the explosive growth in population and land prices along the corridor.

The spike in land prices has been drastic enough to make much of the land along West Spring Mountain Road near Wynn Road more valuable than the low-density industrial development that currently sits there, said County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who represents much of the area.

Boggs McDonald has long pitched the area as a vibrant cultural corridor akin to Chinatown districts in other cities.

"This is a destination, and as we evolve, this will become even more of a destination," she told a small crowd of businesspeople and residents gathered at the Harbor Palace restaurant on Spring Mountain.

"My hope is that (Las Vegas) Chinatown will be as much of a draw as Chinatowns in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco."

Rod Allison, planning manager for Clark County's Comprehensive Planning Department, said creating such an area will include redrawing an existing land-use map to reflect a shift toward commercial uses for the properties along Spring Mountain as opposed to the industrial businesses that once -- and to some extent still do -- line the busy street.

The department is expected to make its pitch before the Paradise Town Board on May 31 and the Winchester Town Board on June 1. The matter will come before the Clark County Commission on Aug. 3.

Turning that part of Spring Mountain west of Interstate 15 into its own kind of entertainment mecca may mean expanding the gaming overlay district. That would allow planned mixed-use properties to apply for gaming licenses, said Golden Welch, who represented the developer of the nearby Dragon City mixed-use project.

Welch said changing zoning to allow gaming in the area would be "a battle" against powerful casino companies but that it would draw tourists who would otherwise not leave the Strip.

"If you truly want to make Chinatown a destination, why not have gaming?" Welch asked. "They talk on the surface of making it a destination, but what would make it a destination is gaming."

The Dragon City project, which is expected to include several thousand hotel and condominium units and more than 17,000 square feet of retail space, is set to break ground in mid-2007, Susan Krygiell, managing member of Spring Mountain Wynn Investments, said.

It's the kind of project that would be a likely candidate for a gaming license, although changing gaming overlay regulations could be a drawn-out process, Boggs McDonald said.

Meanwhile, it's the kind of project that could eventually squeeze out working class families living in the thousands of rental apartments in the residential neighborhoods near Chinatown, Linda Schlax, property manager for the Vista del Valle apartments in the 4000 block of West Viking, said.

Schlax, who is a member of Apartment Communities Together in Our Neighborhoods, an advocacy group that claims to represent residents and owners of 2,200 apartment complexes, argued that unchecked growth could reverse what had become a decreasing crime rate in her neighborhood.

At the very least, a higher cost of living in the corridor could cause already rising rents to continue to increase further, Lisa Price, an ACTION member and manager of Rancho Vista apartments, said.

Apartments in Price's complex now rent for between $620 and $830 a month, she said.

"It looks like they (county officials) are looking forward," she said. "My concern is how it may impact the families. The area is turning into a sophisticated area."

But the mixed-use properties -- and the perceived sophistication that comes with them -- may come at too high a price for many of the working class families who rely on relatively affordable rental properties, Schlax said.

"All this mixed-use is great, but we're concerned about the quality of life for our residents," she said. "It's going to run a lot of people out of this area, this $500,000 and $1 million apiece condos. This is scaring a lot of people."