We must move forward with new City Hall

To the editor:

On Wednesday, the Las Vegas City Council will vote on a matter that may well set in motion a series of actions that could ultimately create 13,000 permanent jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity.

But if they vote no, they will bypass an unparalleled opportunity to bolster our local economy, provide much-needed jobs and significantly advance the renaissance of downtown Las Vegas over the next decade.

The new Las Vegas City Hall isn't just about tearing down an old building and building a new one. It's about government acting more like a business and managing its real property assets in a prudent way to the benefit of its citizens.

Today, we have a chance to create a better future for our children and their children. We've already started developing a much better Las Vegas with an urban core that includes medicine, arts, culture, commerce and more -- a great vision articulated by Mayor Oscar Goodman, the City Council and the Redevelopment Agency, and supported by investment from developers who will put their money on the line to revitalize our downtown.

The new City Hall is part of the city's long term redevelopment plan that also includes the build-out of Symphony Park, where the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health is already currently seeing patients, and the Smith Center for the Performing Arts is under construction. As part of the new City Hall agreement, Forest City Enterprises, a highly respected national developer, is planning, as an anchor at Symphony Park, the first new hotel casino to be built downtown in decades.

Relocating the City Hall will open up another important development opportunity on the current site and adjacent land. From a private sector perspective, it is a completely logical move to replace one aging asset (the old City Hall) with a new one (an arena and live entertainment district) that will generate property and sales taxes on premium property.

The city recently approved an agreement for this area with the Cordish Co., a national developer adept at difficult revitalization projects in downtowns such as Kansas City, where they developed the Power and Light District. The agreement with Cordish requires a feasibility study for an arena and entertainment district as the first step toward the realization of a master redevelopment plan for downtown. If this project does move forward, downtown Las Vegas could potentially enjoy a similar future as downtown San Diego where the construction of Petco Park spurred significant private development over the ensuing years.

The Las Vegas Redevelopment Authority, one of the most successful in the nation, has created this valuable public-private partnership to do just that on a site that becomes available only if City Hall is relocated.

The new City Hall project will create construction jobs and sales tax revenue and help to fuel economic recovery in the short term. In the long term, it will prove to have been vital to the creation of a world-class downtown because of the spin-off development that is made possible through the city's thoughtful management of its real estate assets.

Now is not the time to thwart development in downtown. Now is the time to promote it.

Rita Brandin

LAS VEGAS

The writer is senior vice president of Newland Communities, which is the project manager at Symphony Park.