An example of empire building

With near-unanimous support Wednesday, the Las Vegas City Council approved a plan to tear down its perfectly good City Hall in hopes someone will buy the cleared lot and build a casino there.

They'll only do that after they spend $185 million building a new City Hall on the site of a derelict hotel on Main Street between Lewis and Clark avenues, a mile to the southwest.

Why the developers who want to build a new casino downtown (at a time when existing hotel towers are closing or already dark -- the Cordish Companies is the name currently in play) can't simply do so over closer to Main and Clark, sparing the city a ton of trouble and expense, has never been explained. Something to do with Feng Shui, perhaps.

The one vote against this game of downtown dominoes came from Councilman Stavros Anthony, who noted, "I think we're potentially going to put ourselves in a position where we're going to have to lay off more employees, cut more."

Forest City says it will build 900,000 square feet of office and retail space next to the new municipal building. The deal would also give the firm access to a parcel in Symphony Park for a hotel-casino, once the building is complete.

Meantime, the Cordish Companies are supposedly examining the current City Hall's 19-acre parcel for use as a sports arena and entertainment district.

If this elaborate plan fails to generate the hoped-for new development, the costs of the new City Hall would simply be borne by the city's general fund.

At the risk of redundancy, this is a perfect example of the ongoing arrogance and cluelessness of a City Council whose redevelopment schemes over the past 15 years have taken off about as often as Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.

Today, with the economy in a long trough, with the city laying off workers and threatening 8 percent across-the-board pay cuts in each of the next two years, when today's City Hall is still in fine condition and will offer even more space once Las Vegas police move into their new headquarters, how can anyone justify throwing $185 million into a land-swap redevelopment roll of the dice?

If it "promotes economic development" to raise taxes in order to hand city contracts to a couple of favored developers, why not build seven new high-rises, so each council members can have one of his own? Think how much richer that would make us!