High-rise backlash begins
Historic neighborhood wants heights restricted on Las Vegas Boulevard
By DAVID MCGRATH SCHWARTZ
REVIEW-JOURNAL
. Apr. 16, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
The first high-rise condominium tower has yet to open in downtown Las Vegas, but a backlash has begun.
Residents of a nearby historic district want the city to restrict the height of buildings along a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard to five stories or 60 feet.
The proposed ordinance is a response to concerns that high-rises would ruin views, block sunlight and destroy the feel of the John S. Park neighborhood, a collection of 444 homes between Charleston and Oakey boulevards, east of Las Vegas Boulevard.
Passage of the ordinance would mark at least a partial retreat from the vision of a "Manhattanized" Las Vegas core that Mayor Oscar Goodman and other officials have for years championed as a key to revitalizing downtown.
Since 2000, the city has encouraged high-rises downtown by exempting those projects from mandatory height and parking restrictions, according to Margo Wheeler, director of Las Vegas' Planning and Development department.
Integral to downtown's resurgence is luring people to visit and live there, officials say. But John S. Park residents -- who include a number of influential media and political figures -- have managed to kill several projects proposed near the neighborhood, from a Titanic-themed casino to a recent plan for a high-rise condo tower where a wedding chapel now stands.
John S. Park is an anomaly in Las Vegas: a community of single-family homes dating back to the 1930s with tree-lined streets, where neighbors know each other and frequently gather.
It weathered downtown's decline, which brought homelessness and crime into the suburban neighborhood. Throughout, it remained a middle-class enclave in the shadow of downtown.
"We were the redevelopment," said Bob Bellis, president of the John S. Park Neighborhood Association, who has lived in the area for 16 years. "We bought into the mayor's vision of a redeveloped urban core."
But some wonder if the neighborhood now stands in the way of the city fully realizing that vision.
Those who own property along Las Vegas Boulevard say that the proposed height restrictions would prevent the city from taking the next step in its evolution. The restrictions, they say, would hamper development on a section of Las Vegas' key street that could eventually become a bridge between the prosperous Strip and a downtrodden downtown.
Currently, the land hosts a mix of strip clubs, wedding chapels and adult bookstores.
Controlled growth runs counter to what the region's founders, many of whom lived in John S. Park, envisioned, according to Las Vegas Boulevard property owners.
"Those who lived there are rolling over in their graves seeing this proposal," said John Gubler, who grew up in the neighborhood and now co-owns an acre of land at Las Vegas and Oakey boulevards. "This is so contrary. The pioneers who lived there never in the world would've considered this."
Elected officials recognize the conundrum: Future vertical residential development on Las Vegas Boulevard could come at the expense of one of downtown's existing residential success stories.
But Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese, whose ward includes the historic neighborhood, said he supports the height restrictions.
"This may be Las Vegas Boulevard, it may be an extension of the Strip, but it's a neighborhood. People are living within a couple hundred feet of that," he said.
Goodman, who has made revitalizing downtown the focus of his administration, wouldn't disclose how he's leaning on the ordinance, which is scheduled to be discussed by a City Council committee on Tuesday.
He did say, however, that he isn't convinced high-rises would hurt the John S. Park neighborhood, while also noting, "We owe them a tremendous amount and have to respect their quality of life."
On a recent morning, Mike Britain, 66, sat in front of his house with his grandson Zach D'Guggliemo and their two dogs, watching over the neighborhood. He pointed at houses and listed the names and occupations of those living in them.
"This here has a small town feeling, even though it's in Las Vegas," he said.
Britain should know. He and his wife moved to John S. Park 11 years ago from a Texas town of 900 people.
Twice a year there are block parties. Streets are closed and people share their favorite dishes in front yards. His wife is putting together recipes for a neighborhood cookbook.
"You sit out here at night, people walk around with no fear. Everybody cares, everybody's concerned," he said.
From his perch, he can see the Stratosphere. Also visible is the soon-to-open Soho Lofts, a 16-story, high-rise condominium project. It's the first of what city officials hope will be many similar projects.
Britain said high-rises along the western edge of the community would wall in the neighborhood, particularly for those whose homes are just a few hundred feet from Las Vegas Boulevard, he said.
In 2001, residents passed a neighborhood plan calling for a height restriction along their stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard. But that plan was merely a vision of what the community wanted, without teeth to force property owners to comply. So while the neighborhood successfully has fought proposals to build towers on their stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, they now want something firmer in the form of the proposed height limit.
Bob Coffin, a state senator who lives in a 50-year-old John S. Park home, said that Las Vegas needs to preserve the historic neighborhood, the only one left in Las Vegas.
The neighborhood, he said, has been a "live-and-let-live neighborhood" for their neighbors. Cities, he said, constantly control land use by imposing zoning on property to restrict what the land is used for.
"We haven't complained about the sex toys and the noise of the existing property as it is," he said. "We left them alone. But we feel we have some rights."
But so do Las Vegas Boulevard property owners, Gubler said.
"This is like condemning people's land without condemning it," he said of the proposed restrictions.
Not that the neighborhood isn't special, Gubler said. He still occasionally drives through to reminisce.
But he sees the land along Las Vegas Boulevard as a potential link between the limelight of the Strip and a yet unrealized vision of an improved downtown.
" Las Vegas is becoming a big city, and in some ways frankly, I wish for the old days. But in other ways, growth and development brings a lot of good things," he said.
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