Boosters see Zappos move as latest step in bringing people back to downtown
The announcement that the online clothing retailer Zappos plans to relocate its headquarters to downtown Las Vegas set off a state of fevered joy last week among city leaders and downtown boosters, who said the city center is finally poised on the edge of a great resurgence.
A more complete view, though, is that downtown has been quietly adding businesses and residents for some time.
The patient efforts of many people have gradually combined to create an environment that can draw the interest of major players — and have kept that effort alive during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
“It’s a tremendous thing for downtown. The beauty of it is, it’s just one spoke on a big wheel,” said developer Sam Cherry, whose projects include the Soho Lofts and Newport Lofts condominium towers. “Downtown has more going on here than it has in the past. The heart and soul of a downtown are the people. That’s really what makes a downtown.”
There are more people downtown, and most likely more are on the way.
Newport and Soho are about 90 percent occupied, Cherry said, a vast improvement over the vacant days.
Streamline Tower, another high-rise condo project that fell on hard times, is starting to lease units, and the same might happen at Juhl Lofts.
It’s not just condos that are popular, said Steve Franklin, a real estate agent who specializes in downtown.
“I am seeing a trend of people tiring of the sea of soulless McMansions,” Franklin said. “Downtown Las Vegas is the only area in the valley that offers an array of diverse housing options. People are more concerned with commute times, public transportation, arts, dining, nightlife, walkability, bikeability — and they want it all close by.”
That’s what John Kristich was looking for after returning to Las Vegas following more than 10 years away. He grew up in the Scotch 80s neighborhood, but in his memory downtown was seedy and undesirable. He moved into the Red Rock Country Club and immediately found it wasn’t to his taste — so he recently moved to a house in his old neighborhood.
“Red Rock was pretty. It looked nice,” Kristich said. “But we’ve met more people since we moved here three weeks ago. In Red Rock, we knew one neighbor. That’s it.”
The move also involved getting reacquainted with a part of the city Kristich had written off.
“The first time I was invited to First Friday, I said, ‘I’m not going downtown,’ ” he said.
He did, though, and “I actually walked the length of Fremont Street for the first time since I was 16 years old. It was real nice. It’s amazing.”
Franklin rattled off a list of nearly two dozen businesses that have opened in the past year or plan to open soon, a list that included a coffeehouse, a tattoo parlor, restaurants and bars, a cigar shop and a real estate company.
“I tell people all the time that as strip malls across the valley have turned into ghost towns, downtown has seen very few businesses close and a ton of new ones enter the market,” Franklin said.
James Reza, co-owner of the Globe Salon in Soho Lofts, at 900 Las Vegas Blvd. South, decided to relocate the salon from Charleston and Decatur boulevards in 2008 specifically because of the downtown potential — something that, as a native, he says he always knew was there.
“We knew that the core would eventually revitalize. We wanted to be a part of it,” he said. “It’s not easy right now, but it will get better.
“All of this is exactly what I envisioned 15 years ago. I’ve always been a proponent of downtown.”
So is attorney Craig P. Kenny, who expects to move into his new, $9 million, four-story office at Clark and Eighth streets in January, right across from the historic Las Vegas Academy.
Like many other firms downtown, his practice occupies vintage houses converted to office space. The move allows everyone in his firm to consolidate in one building with luxurious touches, including a half-court gymnasium, a well-equipped workout room, locker rooms, video games, a seven-seat theater with leather recliners and views of the entire valley.
“I’d like to think we’re the harbinger for firms to come in and build something exciting,” Kenny said. “They’re going to look at this building and laugh, because it’s going to be the smallest one in the city.”
He may be on to something. Last week, the City Council approved plans for a legal building around the corner from his new offices that will be about twice as big as his showpiece.
That’s part of the activity expected, spurred by a mix of public spending, charitable investment, development incentives, long-range planning and the perseverance of some pioneers who wanted downtown to work.
Plans for the closed Lady Luck casino will be filed with the city in about a month, Andrew Donner of Resort Gaming Group, a partner in the casino’s redevelopment, said last week.
The Mob Museum is scheduled to open next year.
Opportunity Village lost its thrift store on Main Street to a fire, but the charity has promised to rebuild on the same spot. Construction continues, meanwhile, on a new City Hall and the Smith Center for the Performing Arts.
Downtown also is getting a long-awaited grocery store, Resnicks Market, which is scheduled to open this month in the Soho Lofts.
In the Fremont East district bordering the Fremont Street Experience, the number of nightspots has increased to seven, up from three in 2007. Plans call for another new nightclub, a new Thai restaurant and Insert Coins, a bar that will offer classic arcade games and video console games from throughout gaming history.
Insert Coins owner Chris LaPorte said his schedule calls for an April 1 opening — no foolin’.
LaPorte has kept his eye on downtown since moving to Las Vegas five years ago.
“What I’ve seen is a complete overhaul,” he said. “It’s looking better every day.”
The challenge for downtown backers now is to make sure the rest of the valley feels the same way about the city center instead of thinking of it as a place to avoid.
“Every city’s going to have homeless people and panhandlers,” LaPorte said. “It doesn’t mean that it’s a bad area. It’s just a perception thing.”
There also is the reality of many empty storefronts and dilapidated buildings. Much of downtown is old by Southern Nevada standards, and plenty of structures need to be updated or cleared away.
Neonopolis, the hulking nearly 10-year-old mall with a killer address at Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street, sits mostly empty and unvisited.
And so far, Mayor Oscar Goodman’s quest for a sports arena and a professional team remains unfulfilled as he nears the end of his tenure as mayor.
That effort is ongoing, and Goodman said he hopes to build on the Zappos announcement that it is bringing 1,000 jobs to the city, with plans to expand to two or three times that number.
Goodman is chairman of the Mayors Business Council at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which he noted last week could be a forum to tout Nevada’s low tax structure and available workers.
“Major companies from throughout the United States are members of that council,” he said. “I have never tried to entice those companies to come here, because I needed one to be here to validate us.
“Zappos could’ve gone anyplace in the world. I am going to use that. If Zappos … chose Las Vegas over any other place in the world they could’ve gone to, there must be a reason. And then I can give the reasons that we always give.”
Review-Journal photographer John Locher contributed to this report. Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.
