Editorial: Breaking the cycle of blight

Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006 | 9:21 a.m.

A little more than a year ago Las Vegas purchased three houses in an aging working-class neighborhood downtown. The plan was to use the land in the 300 block of North Sixth Street for a City Hall expansion and parking lot. Barrick Gaming owned other property in the same area.

But as the Las Vegas Sun reported Monday, 14 months after the city purchased the homes and several months after Barrick sold its Sixth Street property to Tamares Las Vegas Partners, the modest houses sit vacant and boarded up, creating what residents say is an environment that attracts crime and people who are homeless.

David Teese, a retired electrician who lives in the neighborhood, told the Sun, "It was a nice old neighborhood" that has turned into "a ghetto for the homeless." Teese's wife said she worries about fires she has seen burning inside the abandoned houses, some of which sit next to the apartment building where the couple lives. Residents want the places torn down.

City officials haven't developed the area as planned, as they are now considering the idea of building a new City Hall on a 61-acre site the city owns on the west side of downtown. And Tamares officials told the Sun they are in talks they hope will lead to a land trade or to the city purchasing their company's Sixth Street properties. "Something could happen in the next 60 to 90 days," Tamares Managing Member Michael Treanor said.

Hopefully, that something won't end up being a fire that jumps from a vacant house to an occupied apartment building while the city and Tamares figure it out. Such property creates a breeding ground for all sorts of vandalism and worse.

Redevelopment has always been a challenge in downtown Las Vegas. Some projects require immediate action while others are better served by a methodical, more time-consuming approach. But the latter could work just as well when the land is vacant. Rather than boarding up dilapidated buildings and allowing them to stand empty and virtually unsecured, the city should raze such structures immediately, clear away the debris and secure the vacant lots while it makes its plans.

Swaths of dirt surrounded by chain-link fences certainly don't improve the aesthetics of an area. But they look better than broken-down houses with plywood windows. And they don't become unsightly, dangerous havens for vandals.