New City Hall would create more than 400 construction jobs plus others

The City Hall building proposed for downtown Las Vegas would create about 475 construction jobs a year, along with 266 indirect jobs related to construction, an economic consultant said in an independent analysis.

Construction wages and benefits from those jobs are estimated at nearly $33 million a year, about $69,000 per worker, said John Restrepo, principal of Restrepo Consulting Group.

Using a community-wide multiplier of 0.41 for each dollar paid in construction wages, Restrepo calculated $13 million in indirect wages and benefits per year.

The project's estimated $145 million construction cost would potentially generate an additional $70 million of economic activity for Las Vegas. It could also be a catalyst for private development downtown, Restrepo said.

"In the end, the most powerful point in favor of the city's plan is the most basic one of creating and saving jobs," he said.

The unemployment rate is reported at 13 percent in Las Vegas, but is probably closer to 20 percent when discouraged job seekers and workers forced to take part-time jobs are included, Restrepo said.

The 310,000-square-foot City Hall is planned for Main Street and Clark Avenue on land purchased in 2006 by New York investors Barnet Lieberman and David Mitchell. They bought five square blocks downtown, roughly 14 acres, for nearly $100 million and planned to develop a live-work project. The land is now owned by Cleveland-based Forest City Development.

Contact reporter Hubble Smith at hsmith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0491.