Joe Schoenmann

Downtown Las Vegas Reporter

A native Wisconsinite, Joe earned a journalism degree to get out of college early but wanted none of the craft after graduation. Need for a job landed him at small Wisconsin weeklies before moving to Las Vegas in 1997. He has been recognized for his magazine profiles and his investigative stories that exposed police bias against minorities.

Email »

702-455-6175

Story Archive

Joe Downtown: Obsession, Def Leppard and Zappos combine to spell success for businesswoman: Saturday, March 2, 2013; 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.
Joe Downtown: City says plans for Wi-Fi moving forward: Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013; Within the next several months, Las Vegas will unveil free wireless Internet access in a limited downtown area. Jace Radke, city spokesman, said free Wi-Fi would be activated in two phases: The first phase will include an area bound by Charleston Boulevard on the south, U.S. 95 to the north, Interstate 15 to the west and Eighth Street to the east.
Joe Downtown: Livestream allows free viewing of TED Conference talks: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013; So a choreographer, serial entrepreneur, nuclear scientist, food engineer, futurist, cancer-detector inventor, multisense designer and violinist all got together one day. And the punchline? There isn’t one. This is actually happening and you can watch it all via livestream video in the downtown Construction Zone speakers space, 158 S. Seventh St., through Friday.
Joe Downtown: Metro cop in line for national 'officer of the year' award: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013; A Metro Police sergeant whose can-do attitude has created admirers of many new people and businesses downtown is a finalist in an officer of the year contest sponsored by Officer.com.
Joe Downtown: 36 Downtown developments you should know about: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013; It’s been just over two years since Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh announced the movement of his headquarters from Henderson to Downtown. In that time, Downtown has changed—greatly in some areas, more slowly in others—and growth and interest in Downtown business has outpaced predictions made before the Zappos declaration in late 2010.
Joe Downtown: Alleged beating involving bar personnel under investigation: Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013; Police are investigating an alleged beating Sunday morning involving employees at a popular downtown bar. Police were called at 5 a.m. to the Commonwealth bar, 525 Fremont St., although the incident reportedly happened at 2:53 a.m.
Who is Kenny Cherry? Loved ones reject Strip shooting victim's portrayal as criminal: Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013; Two days later, Kenny Cherry’s death after a shooting on the Las Vegas Strip appears less of a mystery than his life.
HELP USA gives homeless veterans opportunity to overcome the impossible: Friday, Feb. 22, 2013; Earlier this week, Maria Cuomo Cole, chairwoman of the board of HELP USA — which her brother, Andrew, helped found in 1986 to aid New York’s homeless — toured the 3-year-old Renaissance Apartments. There, in a complex of buildings at the southwest corner of Foremaster and Main, HELP USA has 50 permanent apartments for veterans and their families.
Joe Downtown: Hackidemia to put youths' imaginations into high gear: Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013; Stefania Druga is only 26 but has lived around the world and, more intriguingly, knows how to make a battery from a lemon, extract DNA from strawberries and create her own video games. Over two hours this weekend, she will help kids make their own video games from scratch using free software, play with graffiti, create a conducting circuit from dough and do other fun tasks that have a scientific bent.
Joe Downtown: Fremont Shoes sets sights on downtown manufacturing plant: Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013; 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.
Website to bring greetings from the dearly departed: Retired Metro officer has high hopes for celebratinglegacy.com; Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013; A retired Las Vegas cop who saw his share of death in 34 years in policing hopes a website he has created will help combat some of the misery associated with death by letting the dead to “speak” with the living. Along the way, former Metro Lt. Randy Sutton sees his site as potentially life-changing. The site will allow "members" to store video, audio and writings that can be accessed by family, friends or coworkers after the user dies. It also can serve as a historical record of the deceased, which Sutton believes will drive those who use it to do more good in life.
Legislation to extend downtown hotel-room tax raises questions: Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013; The city of Las Vegas' proposed state legislation regarding downtown redevelopment now includes extending a 20-year-old room tax an additional 25 years. And it's raising questions among downtown businesses.
Joe Downtown: Decades-old safe discovered in Atomic Liquors yields only old receipts: Monday, Feb. 18, 2013; New owners of Atomic Liquors on Fremont Street, one of the oldest free-standing taverns in Las Vegas, finally opened a floor safe discovered months ago during remodeling.
Joe Downtown: Amazing Johnathan trades stage for design studio: Monday, Feb. 18, 2013; The Amazing Johnathan, who performed his twisted brand of comedy-magic on the Strip for more than a decade before giving it up late last year, is going into a new line of work. Johnathan Szeles, who grew up in Michigan, says he is going to be redesigning the Las Vegas Club, a casino at Main and Fremont streets. Szeles, who last fall installed the Screamont Experiment, a permanent haunted attraction, in the casino, said he had been asked to do a redesign based on the premise of “fun.” Szeles said he can’t give specifics right now. “All I can tell you is they want me to design the place and make it ‘FUN,’” he said, adding that “they like my ideas and asked me to help. That’s all.”
Bounce in economy reignites desire to bring high-flying attraction to city: Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013; Stephen Meadows is once again seeking a spot to erect a domed structure for his invention, the Parabounce, either on the Strip or in downtown Las Vegas. Parabounce combines an oversized helium balloon with a pedal-powered bike — a Parabike — that hangs below and allows the pedaler to go up and down, left or right.
Joe Downtown: Competitors vie for piece of the downtown pizza pie: Friday, Feb. 15, 2013; Downtowners better have a big appetite for pizza. Three restaurants opening this year — Pizza Rock, Slice, Radio City Pizza — will be added to four already selling pizzas on and around the Fremont East Entertainment District: Uncle Joe’s, Pop Up Pizza, Piccadilly Pizza Fremont, and, downtowners say, Luna Rosa, which is a pizzeria/Italian restaurant in Neonopolis. That makes seven places peddling pizza within roughly one-third of a mile of each other. If you think this means war, as in price war, that isn’t necessarily the case.
Downtown Joe: Death knocking at door of Heart Attack Grill's unofficial spokesman: Friday, Feb. 8, 2013; A Las Vegas man who became the unofficial spokesman for downtown’s Heart Attack Grill by dint of the fact that he came to the restaurant daily will die shortly from a heart attack.
Fictionalized account of son's shooting by Metro Police cathartic for author: Friday, Feb. 8, 2013; A new book by the father of Erik Scott, the 38-year-old shot to death by three Metro Police officers in July 2010, describes a corrupt power structure in Las Vegas — much of it within the police department — few care to imagine.
Joe Downtown: City’s four-day week has some Downtowners frustrated: Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013; "Thursday is the new Friday," according to one Downtown businesswoman.
Joe Downtown: Former politician now engaged in 'Art of Free Law': Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013; The oddity of a free legal clinic in Las Vegas isn’t defined by the fact it sits under a tent in the middle of First Friday, a downtown monthly fest for art, entertainment and food. Some advice-seekers might appear odd, such as the bearded lady from a cancelled television show, but that’s not it, either. What puts The Art of Law Free Legal Clinic in a different realm is attorney Matt Callister, the man who started it. Talk to 10 people and you’ll likely get 10 different descriptions for the guy.
Joe Downtown: Rideshare of future in the works downtown: Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013; Imagine a world without cars. Zach Ware asked some 300 people to do just that, then told them how a system of bikes, electrical vehicles, buses and, yes, a helicopter, should be in place by this fall to allow those living downtown to get by without their own car.
Joe Downtown: Organizers seek OK for 'Life is Beautiful Festival': Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013; City leaders next week will consider plans to turn a vacant, three-acre lot on Fremont Street into the home of the Life Is Beautiful Festival, a Downtown Project-supported event scheduled for October.
Joe Downtown: Business activity under way farther east on East Fremont: Friday, Feb. 1, 2013; Businesses are slowly moving farther east on Fremont Street. Airstream 2 Go just signed a lease for land at 123 N. 10th St., at Ogden Avenue, where current-model Airstream trailers and trucks to tow them will be available for rental.
Joe Downtown: Ecomom lays off 17 people after co-founder's death: Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013; One of the first tech companies to buy into the vision of downtown Las Vegas’ revival has laid off several employees just three days after the death of its co-founder.
Children's Museum to close Sunday; new location opens in March: Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013; After serving more than 2 million visitors over 22 years, the Lied Children’s Discovery Museum on Las Vegas Boulevard North closes Sunday. ...
Joe Downtown: Las Vegas becoming less a phase and more a home for many: Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013; Most Las Vegans came from somewhere else, but feeling ownership of Las Vegas is on the rise.
Michael and Jennifer Cornthwaite introduce something new downtown: their first baby: Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013; The street-level first couple of Las Vegas added a first baby to the family last week.
Joe Downtown: University of Iowa students to help 'Reimagine Downtown': Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013; 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.
Joe Downtown: Social-networking developer sees future in amateur sports: Friday, Jan. 25, 2013; Amateur sports is a $20 billion U.S. industry and some 2.3 billion people participate in amateur sports worldwide. In Las Vegas alone, thousands of people, young and old, play soccer, kickball, football, softball, baseball, basketball and more.
Joe Downtown: Discovery of floor safe excites new owners of Atomic Liquors: Friday, Jan. 25, 2013; Under layers of old flooring, Kent and Lance Johns, manager/owners of the old Atomic Liquors, 917 Fremont St., made an astounding discovery recently. A safe.
Joe Downtown: Inside the bubble not always bad: Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013; Often, when you ask someone downtown a question about the latest local tragedy or political happening, you’ll often get nothing but blank stares. At times, those blank stares can be a blessing.
Joe Downtown: Theater dedicated to LGBT-themed films to open: Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013; Many people know about the the 2005 movie, “Brokeback Mountain,” a story about a romantic relationship between two modern-day cowboys that won three Academy Awards. But there are so many movies involving the lesbian/gay/bi/transgender lifestyle that a gay nightclub under construction downtown will include a theater devoted to LGBT movies.
Joe Downtown: 'Sorceress' Sarah Nisperos and the origin of Tony Hsieh’s Downtown dream: Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013; Get to know the person who steered the Zappos CEO to Downtown Vegas.
Joe Downtown: Siren song of downtown is music to his ears: Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013; Justin Graham was looking to build his record label, Attain Records, in Las Vegas long before he heard of Zappos, Tony Hsieh or the Downtown Project. But the fact that community-oriented development is being nurtured downtown strengthened Graham's conviction that downtown was exactly where he wanted to establish roots.
Joe Downtown: Catalyst Week brings motivational speakers downtown: Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013; Continuing its effort to “inspire and be inspired by our surroundings,” Downtown Project brings 13 people from around the country to downtown Las Vegas this week to talk about microfinance, filtering water bottles and all there is to know about rejection and how to turn it into opportunity, among other topics.
Joe Downtown: Shoe manufacturer to join Zappos in locating downtown: Friday, Jan. 18, 2013; It goes without saying these days that all large-scale, light manufacturing — shoes and clothes, for instance — must be done in factories in other countries.
Joe Downtown: Billionaire's son up next at Downtown Speakers Series: Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013; John Kluge Jr. grew up with all the trappings of extreme wealth as the son of a man who topped the 1987 Forbes list of richest people with a worth of some $4 billion.
Joe Downtown: Cosmopolitan, First Friday Foundation cultivating local arts scene: Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013; A multigenre local band, Juice, will be playing this weekend at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. They caught the eye and ears of resort honchos at the launch dinner for the First Friday Foundation.
Joe Downtown: Entrepreneurs have designs on Garment District in Las Vegas: Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013; Most people think of new taverns, eateries and music when envisioning the unfolding redevelopment of Fremont East, that portion of road east of the canopied Fremont Street Experience. Most people also know Tony Hsieh is behind much of the redevelopment. Hsieh is CEO of Zappos, an online shoe and clothing retailer. For that reason, it isn’t hard to see why much of what’s to come is tied into the garment, fashion and clothing business.
Joe Downtown: Strange messages, a mysterious sender and mental health Downtown: Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013; Joe meets the man who's been leaving him odd messages at the Beat.
Joe Downtown: Forget fishing for change; proposed new parking meters will take credit, debit cards: Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013; A long local nightmare with downtown parking meters may be moving in the right direction. Las Vegas officials will consider the purchase of 233 computerized parking meters that accept debit and credit cards.
Joe Downtown: Startups sharing offices, skills, ideas: Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013; On a tiny slice of street in downtown Las Vegas, in an area south of Charleston Boulevard between Las Vegas Boulevard and Maryland Parkway, startup companies are sharing homes and each other’s technical skills.
Joe Downtown: New-to-downtown doctor sets out to demystify medicine: Saturday, Jan. 12, 2013; There may be no one better suited to configure a new way to practice medicine in Las Vegas than Zubin Damania, a Stanford-trained doctor who last year uprooted from the Bay Area and moved his family to Las Vegas. Joining an army of people lured downtown to try something new, Damania is dead serious about medicine — and he embodies a streak of witty silliness displayed on his website.
Joe Downtown: Dome arrives for installation atop Container Park: Friday, Jan. 11, 2013; Three pallets full of vortex dome “stuff” have arrived in Las Vegas, now just waiting for a concrete pad to be poured at the site of the downtown Container Park to be built at Seventh and Fremont streets. Ed Lantz, CEO of Vortex Immersion Media, said the dome could be up in March.
Can housing keep up with the Zappos Downtown move?: Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013; Later this year, 1,500 Zappos employees move into their new headquarters, boosting the number of people living Downtown. Trouble is, affordable living in relatively crime-free areas there is hard to find.
Joe Downtown: Bar contemplated for The Ogden: Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013; A watering hole at The Ogden means some of the people who work online from their high-rise condo may never have to leave the building for nightly entertainment.
Joe Downtown: Prospective tenants juiced about business prospects in former hotel: Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013; A war of juices is taking place behind the scenes downtown, as almost a half-dozen small businesses vie for space in the soon-to-be renovated John E. Carson Hotel at the northwest corner of Sixth and Carson streets.
Joe Downtown: Las Vegas manufacturer gets unexpected lift from Container Park: Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013; In a 63,000-square-foot building near the Spaghetti Bowl’s flyover, a small manufacturer is growing larger with the help of business coming from the East Fremont Container Park.
Joe Downtown: Project brings 'Our Las Vegas' images to smartphones daily: Monday, Jan. 7, 2013; The energy surrounding downtown’s resurgence isn’t all about turning the old into a new business. Some tapping into the human current sense it’s a rare chance, a small opening in the window of the city to connect people to people.
Joe Downtown: At Oscar's, worm turns on would-be scammers: Friday, Jan. 4, 2013; Grifters and con artists infest the world, but the lure of "easy money" in Las Vegas combined with the city's mobbed-up history has to add incentive for them to try their ploys here. Business owners, likewise, are always on the lookout for cons. Four women had a grand time dining on steak and potatoes and sipping drinks Wednesday night at Oscar’s in the Plaza at the far west end of Fremont Street. Three of them appeared to be playing the parts of grandmother, mother and granddaughter, all of them wealthy and from Beverly Hills.