Downtown: Now what?

Symphony Park has its centerpiece. The $470 million Smith Center for the Performing Arts held its opening gala Saturday night and its first public performance Monday evening.

Now comes the challenge of setting the table around it.

The past decade has seen massive investments in the area, from the World Market Center to the outlet mall to the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. The Smith Center, a world-class, multi-venue concert hall and cultural hub, is worthy of its billing as the core of the new downtown between the railroad tracks and Interstate 15.

But the Smith Center is surrounded by an awful lot of dirt. Various proposals for a sports arena have gone nowhere. And last week, the City Council got the unsurprising news that celebrity chef Charlie Palmer and his development partners were delaying for an additional year a plan to build a 400-room, luxury hotel across from The Smith Center.

“Banks are not lending today for the construction of new luxury hotels in Las Vegas,” developer Rick Kaufman said.

Additional plans call for more restaurants and retail shopping in areas surrounding The Smith Center, enterprises that face ever-tighter margins in a fragile economic recovery.

“We have momentum right now, and I don’t want to see that slow down,” Councilman Steve Ross said in response to hotel delay. Mayor Carolyn Goodman talked about providing developers with new incentives to speed the construction of complementary projects.

Council members and downtown advocates are right to be excited about the potential created by The Smith Center. But they must be patient. The Smith Center needs time to grow into its space, create its identity and become familiar to locals. New investors need assurances that The Smith Center will generate significant new traffic downtown before they’ll open shop next door.

Whether Symphony Park takes another step forward and how long it might take to get there is largely up to Southern Nevadans. If they support The Smith Center, more new development won’t be far behind.