Identity sought for city’s center

Would downtown Las Vegas be a bigger draw if you could meet your friends in Dixieland or hang out in front of the New York Stock Exchange?

In pushing the idea of a master identity for the down-on-its-heels heart of the city, former Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt-Bono has hit on the idea of theming different parts of it. Along the west side of Las Vegas Boulevard, a few blocks to the north and south of Fremont Street, the side streets would be dressed up to reflect milieus appealing to Hollywood, such as vintage Vegas, the Old West and the urbanity of Wall Street. To the east, streets would be tied to different musical genres such as jazz, blues and country.

"Right now, downtown is all pieces," said Hunt-Bono, who has also served on promotional boards in the state. "It's really an entity unto itself, and we should think of it as one entity and sell it as the city the way the resorts have done with the Strip."

So far, her concept, explained in a five-page binder, has been given to only a handful of people. One of them, Mayor Carolyn Goodman, was not available for comment.

The presentation touts "side streets adaptable for movie/TV ad commercial productions highlighting a music and arts district," and notes that "the 'city' of Las Vegas is now at its 'Tipping Point' and needs to be 'tipped' in the right direction."

Spokesmen for the Fremont Street Experience and TLC Casino Enterprises, which owns the Four Queens and Binion's, said it was news to them.

Hunt-Bono , whose business interests center around the Bootlegger restaurant south of the Strip, said the idea came to her about nine months ago. About three months ago over dinner she talked friends from the architecture firm Thalden Boyd Emery into repackaging her crude sketches as a professional-looking presentation.

The plan also includes renaming downtown west of the railroad tracks as Century Center in Symphony Park to give it more of a business like panache. Just two years ago, the city adopted the name to reflect the location of the Smith Performing Arts Center, now nearing completion, after it had previously been called Union Park.

Further, she dusted off years-old ideas about remaking Cashman Center into a video production studio.

While picking themes for the streets might involve putting up some facades to match, she said she does not want to turn downtown into a Potemkin village.

"It should be creative and organic, not contrived," she said. "I don't want to have a Disneyland."

Nor does she want the plan enforced by a government mandate. Rather, she hopes business owners will see the value of a common identity on their own.

At this point, she said she is about ready to step back from the process and let others advance it.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at
toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.