Friday, September 10, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY ADDRESS: Harter eyes 'street scene'
UNLV president announces project to revitalize neighborhoods bordering campus
By K.C. HOWARD
REVIEW-JOURNAL
University of Nevada, Las Vegas President Carol Harter delivers her 10th annual State of the University address Thursday at the Judy Bayley Theatre. She announced a major revitalization plan for neighborhoods surrounding the campus.
Photo by ISAAC BREKKEN/REVIEW-JOURNAL
|
UNLV President Carol Harter wants to revitalize the neighborhoods surrounding the campus.
In her 10th annual State of the University address, President Carol Harter announced a plan Thursday to reinvigorate its community, starting with the east side of Maryland Parkway and calling it "Midtown UNLV."
"It's a hell of a project," Interim Chancellor Jim Rogers said after the speech. "It'll clean up the area. It ain't very sexy over there."
The public-private partnership, only in the conceptual stages, would produce bars, cafes, shops and trendy loft-type living spaces that would attract a creative class of residents and students, Harter said.
"Las Vegas is still known primarily ... as a rather crude and unsophisticated place," Harter said. "Such image building does little for us in higher education and actually runs somewhat counter to our efforts, and those of the most serious of our citizens, to build a cosmopolitan and sophisticated city."
UNLV trustee and neighboring business owner Michael Saltman is spearheading the revitalization plan. He owns the Promenade, a commercial center across from UNLV, where numerous bars and cafes have come and gone.
"Somebody's got to start someplace," he said.
He said he would like to begin renovating the three-acre property next year. After gutting it, he'd like to build an underground parking garage, a first floor of retail shops and a top level of living spaces.
His inspiration for the plan was the design of the Chipotle restaurant on Maryland Parkway near Harmon Avenue.
Harter said UNLV's first step is to reform the university entrance so it fits the surrounding master plan that Saltman and his architects have crafted.
To accommodate growth, she said, the university also will have to start acquiring properties on Maryland Parkway for classes and office space before 2010.
"Those are going to be private dollars," she said. "The zeros are going to be off the sheet."
Harter said she's also inquiring into moving the planned site for the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs to a more visible location and implementing the same architectural themes.
The $41 million building currently is set to be constructed behind the In-N-Out burger outlet on Maryland Parkway and University Road.
During the last 60 days, Las Vegas police have responded to 375 incidents within a one-mile radius of UNLV. There were 117 calls of assault and battery, 88 calls for burglaries, 31 calls for narcotics, 31 calls for robbery and 108 reports of stolen vehicles.
Harter said crime generally stays off campus, but the revitalization is needed to clean up the community.
Saltman's long-term plan involves renovation of all major streets surrounding UNLV. Part of that plan would be to narrow Maryland Parkway to make it more pedestrian-friendly.
The county also is reviewing its master plan for the area, and Harter said it's on board for the project. She also said community input will be sought at all stages.
The trick will be to convince surrounding business owners to go along as well, Saltman said.
"It's infectious," Saltman said. "It'll keep building on itself."
He pointed to communities such as Summerlin and Green Valley, which started as high-end hubs and have expanded.
Harter quoted Carnegie Melon University Professor Richard Florida's book "Rise of the Creative Class," referencing the need to bring workers in science, architecture, education and the arts to Las Vegas.
The city is ranked 95th on Florida's creativity index of cities with more than 1 million in population, largely because of a large service industry here.
"What is clearly undeveloped in Las Vegas is the particular social and cultural climate that characterizes a Madison, Wisconsin; a Boulder, Colorado; Seattle, Washington; and, in Florida's view, Austin, Texas," Harter said.
"What these cities have and we don't yet have, despite the most high-end entertainment in the world, is what Professor Florida calls the 'street scene.' "
