With downtown Las Vegas about to see an influx of 1,300 Zappos employees in a few months, a major local developer is considering construction of a large, mid-priced residential apartment building a few blocks off Fremont Street.
Following a rented llama from The Beat coffeehouse north on Las Vegas Boulevard to Cashman Field, about 100 people took part in the first of what will be a monthly llama parade this summer.
First, it was Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, the corporate mommy who built a private nursery next to her office, then banned employees from working from home. Next, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly dismantled his company’s flexible work program. Then came Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, who published a column in CNN Money defending Mayer’s decision. While some companies claim a ban on telecommuting is vital to workplace culture, many experts say allowing employees the choice to wok from home actually boosts productivity and saves money.
Some 43 residents of the John E Carson Hotel, purchased by Downtown Project investors to be transformed into a multistore retail, food and beverage facility, will get free rent for a month and be moved into a different hotel at the investors’ expense.
Though Tony Hsieh doesn’t want to get into the casino business, sources say, he and a partnership of downtown investors now hold the note to the Gold Spike. A local commercial real estate developer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that means the Gold Spike’s owners, Siegel Group Nevada Inc., now make loan payments to Hsieh and his partners.
The purchase of downtown — well, a good bunch of it, anyway — is almost complete. Downtown Project insiders call the mass of land stretching over several blocks from Las Vegas Boulevard to Maryland Parkway “the llama,” because that’s what it sort of resembles from space.
Fourteen University of Iowa students involved in a class called “Reimagining Downtown” are finished with their spring break in Las Vegas. Now they're focused exclusively on creating something that benefits downtown Las Vegas.
The seafoam-rimmed sunglasses and matching bow in her blond hair aren’t right. If you have to put a finger on the problem, it’s her name. “Krissee DANGER.” The name doesn’t fit the glasses and ribbon. It doesn’t fit the person. There appears nothing dangerous about her. Don’t believe me: Take the word of the people she meets almost daily giving tours for the Downtown Project, where she takes visitors even into the private sanctum of Tony Hsieh’s condo on the 23rd floor of the Ogden.
Another day downtown, another interesting character finds his way into The Beat coffeehouse. But none may have found themselves in as familiar territory as Matt Heller. See, Heller is considered an expert on millennials, who are also sometimes referred to as the Echo Boom generation or Generation Y.
Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project bought the shuttered Western Hotel for $14 million, giving his group another chunk of downtown real estate for a possible future project.
A Reno public relations firm is adding an office in the Emergency Arts building on Fremont Street, aiming its focus on the growing tech startup business environment in Las Vegas.
Claire Jane Vranian’s obsession with fashion and feathers, combined with an innate need to be creative, led to an association with Joe Elliott, lead singer for the iconic ‘80s rock band Def Leppard, and success in the clothing business.
Craig Adkins has spent decades creating efficiencies in production lines for a variety of companies; his latest job was as vice president of fulfillment services for Zappos. About a year ago, Adkins started working on a plan to start yet another venture — bringing shoe manufacturing, not just shoe distribution, to Las Vegas. With support from the Downtown Project, an investment group that includes Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, Adkins expects his shoe-manufacturing business, Fremont Shoes, to open by the end of the year.
University of Iowa lecturer David Gould has created a course that links Las Vegas and Iowa City because of what’s happening downtown; it might not look like anywhere in Iowa, but downtown’s community-oriented redevelopment is the perfect landscape for Gould’s class, Reimagining Downtown.
Old-school businesspeople may not understand Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh's methods. But the estimated 2,000 people attending Preview Las Vegas warmly received him when he offered details of his Downtown Project.
