Joe Downtown: Writer laying groundwork for book on redevelopment effort

Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012 | 11:30 a.m.

Get used to seeing Tim Pratt at Zappos and Downtown Project gatherings over the next several months.

Two months ago, Pratt, a former Las Vegas Sun reporter and now a freelancer, wrote a story for New York Times Sunday Magazine trumpeting the Tony Hsieh-led rebirth of downtown Las Vegas.

Shortly after, Pratt said he was approached by the David Black Agency, the literary agency for best-selling books such as “Tuesdays with Morrie.” Now Pratt is in the early stages of getting enough information together to cobble together a book proposal whose theme focuses on urban revitalization and how Hsieh and the Downtown Project are doing it here.

One day, we might be seeing “Pratt” up there in literary lights alongside Mitch Albom.

Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown, he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts complex.

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By 777s

Dec. 12, 2012

1:35 p.m.

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So much for all of us who laid the real groundwork for Downtown Las Vegas urban redevelopment the last 15 to 30 years. Now Tony Hseih comes into DTLV buying himself a coffee shop here, a cool San Francisco style bar there, a spartan lesbian run lunch spot own a block in a crappy apartment he just bought. Hseih has set himself up as Mafia lord with his piles of cash and "Downtown Project" to protect who gets to the money. A staff of fast talking over caffeinated 32 year olds act as gatekeepers. What about the rest of us that planned downtown into 7 walkable districts, got 1,000 affordable units and 1,400 high rise units built before the recession. We got the nation's best outlet mall, World Market Center, Ruvo Center and the Smith Center built. We got 2 major courthouses built in the core of downtown. We got Fremont Street Experience built after years of negotiation and property rights issues, along with the red garage and the worst redevelopment taking lawsuit in this nation. We helped several casinos expand and grow. Oh no, now it is all about the personality of Tony not the scores of anonymous city staff who really built downtown for you.