Efforts to redevelop Vegas 1960s retail center to displace some businesses

One of the first major retail centers in Las Vegas is poised for a makeover.

Commercial Center is known for being the home of the original Lotus of Siam Thai restaurant, and longtime residents may remember the Ice Palace, which played host to notable music acts in the 1960s-80s, including the Doors, Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead.

Now Clark County has plans to redevelop at least two buildings it bought in the retail center earlier this year. Although the county’s exact plans are unclear, the work will displace some businesses.

Clark County is working on a master plan to redevelop the Commercial Center to make it a hub for small businesses, art, shops and culture away from the Las Vegas Strip, Shani Coleman, director of the Clark County Office of Community and Economic Development, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“It is about reinvigorating an area of town that used to be, that used to be a high point,” Coleman said. “A lot of inner city locations, sometimes they don’t get the investment that they need.”

Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, whose district oversees this area of Las Vegas, said redeveloping Commercial Center is part of a larger plan for Clark County to redevelop several blocks of Sahara Avenue from Las Vegas Boulevard to Maryland Parkway. He said it could take until the end of the year to create the master plan.

The history and legacy of Commercial Center

Made up of more than a dozen buildings, Commercial Center was built in 1963 along Sahara Avenue about 1.5 miles east of the Strip. It’s considered the first major retail center in Las Vegas and was built in an area of town that had easy access to the Las Vegas suburbs and its urban core for its time, said Michael Green, a history professor at UNLV.

“When it was built, we did not yet have the Boulevard Mall, or certainly the Meadows Mall or the big shopping centers on the Strip,” Green said. “So this is probably the first big mall built, and it’s suburban in its time.”

But since its opening the Commercial Center has been outpaced by larger and more modern retail options and no longer regularly hosts major off-Strip events. Although last year the center hosted a concert for the DJ Deadmau5 only 4,500 people attended despite more than 12,000 free tickets given away.

Not a bright future for the County-owned buildings

Clark County paid $12.8 million earlier this year to acquire two buildings in the Commercial Center, with plans to redevelop them. The buildings are the yellow Commercial Arts Building and New Orleans Square retail complex. The county also owns the 1,500-space parking lot in Commercial Center.

Segerblom said the county will demolish Commercial Arts Building and is considering other options for New Orleans Square.

Some businesses in New Orleans Square say the county’s ownership and redevelopment plans are too cloudy for them to stay.

“We’re bleeding thousands of dollars every month because nobody wants to come over here anymore,” said Shwa Laytart, owner of Avantpop Bookstore which has operated in New Orleans Square since 2022 after being an online retailer for over a decade.

Segerblom said Clark County isn’t extending any long-term leases and is only offering month-to-month extensions because the county hasn’t decided what to do with New Orleans Square.

“Until we make up our mind, we are in limbo,” he said.

To fully refurbish New Orleans Square e would cost $10 million, to demolish the complex would cost $3 million and it would cost several million more to replace it with a new building, Segerblom said.

Both tearing down or fully renovating New Orleans Square will force businesses to leave, he said, and he hopes the county can provide some funds to these businesses to help them move and acknowledged it’s not an easy process.

“Government’s work is slow,” Segerblom said.

Laytart hopes to get some assistance from the county to move by the end of the year since he doesn’t want to go back to just selling books online.

“Because we built a community here that’s so important to us, with young artists, young writers, locals that have been asking for a place like this,” Laytart said.

Jessica Oreck, owner of the Office of Collecting and Design, a museum of lost and forgotten objects, said she opened her business at New Orleans Square because she hoped the area would turn into another space for creatives in Las Vegas and would be a cheaper than the Arts District.

But Oreck said that dream is over as the county isn’t bringing in more businesses to the area. Laytart echoed that sentiment.

Now the museum plans to leave sometime this year.

“It makes it so that as more people move out, which continually happens, nobody new is coming in,” Oreck said. “You don’t have neighbors looking out for you.”

Other businesses in the Commercial Center

Not every part of the Commercial Center is struggling. On the opposite side of the center from New Orleans Square, Lotus of Siam is expanding its original location and a new restaurant called Arty’s Steakhouse is working to open.

Vickie’s Diner, which opened in the center in 2021, has seen a good number of business and customers, said owner Vickie Kelesis.

Vickie’s Diner general manager Michael Hawkins said he thinks redevelopment of the center could bring more attention to it and is interested in what efforts the county will undertake. But he said he’s “glad” the county didn’t buy the building where Vickie’s Diner is located. He said he hopes Clark County makes more effort to market Commercial Center.

“Driving down Sahara, you don’t know there’s anything in here, it’s not normal, because the storefronts aren’t on the main street,” Hawkins said.

Long term potential

Even though Oreck doesn’t think it’s viable for her to stay in the Commercial Center in the short term she is hopeful the county can maximize the center’s potential in the long term because of the abundance of parking and large spaces that can host community events.

“It’s the opposite of Main Street in some ways (traffic and parking specifically),” Oreck said. “There’s just a real potential for something that’s much more pedestrian-oriented, something that’s much more about moving from one space to another as an activity.”

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.