Downtown rebound on center stage

Union Park in downtown Las Vegas, where a host of local officials and businesspeople gathered Thursday to break ground on what's expected to be a $9 billion urban center, hasn't always been seen as a key part of revitalizing downtown.

City Councilman Ricki Barlow remembers playing hide-and-seek with his friends when the 61-acre property was a rail yard in the early 1980s.

And Mayor Oscar Goodman, who came to Las Vegas in 1964, has said many times that it was only in recent years that he saw the land as anything other than empty space.

"If there ever was a classic definition of a brownfield, this was it," Goodman said. "It was the most worthless piece of real estate imaginable."

Which is why there were plenty of doubters when the city entered a $33 million land swap to take possession of the property in 2000.

Goodman threw it back at his critics Thursday evening, "They're full of soup," he said, at a ceremony commemorating the start of infrastructure construction.

Which is admittedly not as much fun as, say, blowing up the New Frontier. But it's still important, said Rita Brandin of Newland Communities, which is working with Las Vegas to develop the site.

"What's so sexy about sewer lines and moving dirt?" Brandin said. "Within the next few years, you all will be walking, driving, shopping, playing, enjoying Union Park."

The lengthy program allowed time for all the parties involved to talk, sometimes briefly, about their respective projects, which when put together are meant to form a "city within a city" and further downtown's redevelopment.

Plans call for:

• The Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

• The Lou Ruvo Brain Institute, in a Frank Ghery-designed building that's already under construction.

• A surgical training center and affiliated business hotel.

• The World Jewelry Center, a 60-story skyscraper housing jewelry companies from around the world.

• A boutique hotel and restaurant run by chef Charlie Palmer.

• A new casino-hotel, adding to the offerings downtown.

• About 3,200 residential units, along with office and retail space.

"This is going to be a mini-Manhattan," said Robert Zarnegin, the developer of the World Jewelry Center.

Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian said many people worked a long time to see Union Park bloom.

"We have yearned for a performing arts center. We have yearned for multifaceted medical centers," she said. "We have yearned for fine restaurants and entertainment in this area."

As the speeches and congratulations stretched to more than an hour, though, there was also a yearning to get to the ceremonial shoveling of the dirt already.

Restaurateur Palmer summed up that sentiment in his remarks when he said, "It's about dinner time. Let's find the shovels. Let's go!"

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