Still no names, but City Hall deal at $25 million

Las Vegas still won't say who wants to buy City Hall and turn it into a corporate headquarters, but some details of the proposed deal were released Tuesday.

The transaction calls for the sale of City Hall and adjacent parking garage and the KCLV studio building and surrounding Stewart Avenue parking garage for $25 million "to a developer for the benefit of an end user," according to a city memo summarizing the deal.

The city would lease back the portion it is using for $1 a year through March 2012, which is when the new city hall on Main Street is scheduled to be ready.

The developer would have an option to buy vacant city-owned land along Stewart Avenue east of Las Vegas Boulevard to expand the corporate campus.

The memo says the names of the developer and end user will be disclosed at the Dec. 1 City Council meeting.

The development agreement is on the agenda and could be approved by the council.

In keeping the parties' identities secret, the city cited state statute NRS 268.910, which allows a party's identity to be kept confidential during the research and planning phase of a proposal, but not once the entity has decided to locate a business inside a particular jurisdiction.

"Maintaining the confidentiality of the developer until next week's City Council meeting is vital to the deal going through," a statement from city spokesman David Riggleman said. "A full disclosure of the developer and the specific terms of the agreement will be discussed in an open council meeting at that time."

The city hall site and the adjacent land had been the proposed location of a sports arena complex to be developed by the city and Baltimore-based Cordish Co.

Last week, though, the council agreed to move the Cordish negotiations to Symphony Park to make way for the new proposal to take over City Hall.

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@review
journal.com or 702-229-6435.