NLV hoping people will walk their way

To help give the city an identity beyond an expanse of subdivisions, office parks and strip malls, North Las Vegas is planning to turn to pedestrians.

The city's redevelopment plans call for widening several key corridors in the downtown area to accommodate people on foot and bicycle. To try to lure people out of their cars, plans call for paving sidewalks and crosswalks with bricklike surfaces and lining them with trees.

"We want to create a local and regional destination that is safe and inviting not only for the people of North Las Vegas but the entire region," said Mukul Malhotra, a planner with Berkeley, Calif.-based firm M.I.G., at the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce's annual economic outlook luncheon Directions.

The city also hopes to create a downtown where one barely exists now by tying together planned or existing projects such as a new city hall, the Las Flores shopping center and North Vista Hospital, the city's largest employer. This, city leaders hope, will attract more street level businesses that will appeal to pedestrians.

As part of the plans, Malhotra showed a rendering of a large-scale sign that would create an entryway for the city.

"When you drive past it, you can feel you have reached a very special place," he said.

Perhaps the new development nearest to completion is Las Flores, which will cover about 350,000 square feet near the Silver Nugget on Las Vegas Boulevard. The current schedule calls for groundbreaking in the first half of next year -- once listed as the opening date -- and being ready for shoppers about a year later.

In June, the city purchased the land directly to the north of the Silver Nugget for its new nine-story city hall. The project would also include connecting it to the old city hall on the other side of Civic Center Drive.

Mike Majewski, the city's economic development director, said that private developers have shown plans for at least $1 billion in new projects for downtown, "and that's a conservative number."

Of that, $500 million is tied to a revamping of the Silver Nugget, including a hotel tower. However, company executives have said that they do not use that number and that their time horizon extends to 10 to 15 years.

Majewski highlighted new companies locating facilities in industrial parks that would diversify the job base, including distribution centers for Monster Cable and Amazon.com, plus a General Electric Co. shop to refurbish the wheel assemblies of the railroad locomotives it manufactures.

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