The Oscardome won't soon tower above downtown Las Vegas.
But plans for the city's 61-acre Union Park parcel may still offer locals other reasons to visit a vacant lot city leaders hope will someday transform into a vibrant urban core for the 21st century and beyond.
The Las Vegas City Council on May 17 will discuss a new master plan for Union Park, a rail yard west of Main Street, between Bonneville Avenue and Grand Central Parkway.
Newland Communities, a San Diego company hired by the city last year to coordinate development of the site, will recommend nearly $4 billion in privately funded construction divided into four phases.
Upon completion in 2012, the neighborhood would feature 3,600 residential units totaling 4.9 million square feet; 2.3 million square feet of office space; 420,000 square feet of retail space; and three hotel-casinos with approximately 1,750 combined rooms.
Structures would be divided among civic, entertainment, medical and residential districts connected by streets and parklike plazas.
Buildings would include high-rise towers, as well as brownstones, lofts and walk-ups reminiscent of Philadelphia or New York City.
The Fremont Street Experience would be extended west, through the current site of the Plaza, to connect downtown's casinos with the new civic center.
A few blocks to the south, a modern City Hall would rise at the site of a parking lot near Main Street and Lewis Avenue.
A performing arts venue and Alzheimer's treatment and research center have already been approved for Union Park.
"This place, I think, is going to be the center of the valley," Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said Tuesday. "The whole world is going to be looking at it."
Goodman added: "We're not in a hurry to build anything other than something lasting."
Dan Van Epp, president of Newland Communities' Mountain Division, hopes others will adopt his company's vision of a locals-centric downtown.
"It's not the Strip. It's not going to be focused on and dedicated to tourists," Van Epp said Monday. "We're focused on achieving an interesting lifestyle for residents of the valley."
While some will choose to live in the area, Van Epp hopes residents from elsewhere in Southern Nevada will gather at Union Park to shop, dine, attend a concert or watch a movie.
Barring any last-minute changes, they won't go there to see live baseball or football, however.
Goodman has long sought a downtown stadium to better accommodate a major professional sports franchise. Past models for the 61 acres included such a venue, but Van Epp said a stadium is not part of next week's recommendation.
Traffic is the biggest obstacle, Van Epp said, since the nearby U.S. Highway 95/Interstate 15 interchange often clogs during workday commutes.
Goodman conceded a large stadium is better suited for somewhere else, perhaps near Cashman Center.
Still, he said a basketball/hockey arena could be built on as little as four acres. If the right opportunity arose, he'd reopen the possibility of a Union Park arena.
Through a public-private partnership with the city of Las Vegas, Newland serves as Union Park's master developer.
Its deal requires the city to compensate the company for its direct costs related to the site's development; Newland also has the option to pay fair market value for up to 7.6 acres earmarked for residential or retail development.
Newland is seeking outside partners that would use their own money to build upon the site; such third-party deals would require individual approval from the city.
Newland hopes to extend the Fremont Street Experience across Main Street into an area known as "The Gateway," a circular plaza that would lead to a promenade running the length of the development. For that to occur, the Plaza's main tower would need to be razed, a step Newland is negotiating with the Tamares Group, the hotel-casino's owner.
"It's to everyone's benefit, and I think they realize it," Van Epp said of Tamares. "But it's a big, complicated subject and there's a lot of detail to work through."
Goodman would like to see Las Vegas' major casino companies open properties in Union Park. When asked how their new blood would affect existing Fremont Street casinos, Goodman suggested competition would spur improvement within older businesses in the area.
"We're waking them up," Goodman said. "If they want to compete, and we've got a brand-spanking new hotel (in Union Park), ... it's a free market.
"Competition makes it better. I'm not scared of competition."
It's too soon to disclose any third-party development partners, but Van Epp said Newland has worked with 25 suitors so far.
"There are certain kinds of uses we want to pursue first and foremost, and we're deep into negotiations with three of those parties," Van Epp said.
He declined to name those companies, but said they include large-scale hotel and office/retail developments. He hopes to finalize the first contracts in the next 30 to 90 days.
Those projects would break ground in 18 to 24 months, with infrastructure improvements including streets and utilities to be installed next year.
City Manager Doug Selby said $40 million in infrastructure improvements are needed for Union Park's first phase. That money will be recouped through taxes paid by Union Park occupants, while maintenance of the development's open spaces would be financed by tenant fees similar to homeowners association dues.
Goodman said one potential high-rise tenant could have as great an economic impact as World Market Center, a $2 billion furniture complex now rising just west of Union Park.
The 61 acres will house or abut three of the city's most-distinctive architectural developments: World Market Center, a 12 million-square-foot furniture complex; the Clark County Government Center's futuristic sandstone environs; and the proposed Lou Ruvo Alzheimer's Institute, whose jagged look was designed by icon Frank Gehry.
Van Epp hopes Union Park will complement that nearby architecture without blending into it.
"We're going to attempt to define the architecture of Las Vegas in a way that it's not been defined before," said Van Epp, who termed his preferred style "desert modern."
Goodman wants a mixture of building styles, while Brandin added, "We want to see art in the architecture."
The Related Cos., a New York-based partner in the $2 billion World Market Center, was Union Park's previous master developer. Its contract was canceled in October when Related said it could not meet city deadlines for development of the site.
Van Epp said Related's progress helped shape his company's plans going forward.
"Nobody's work that's been done over the last five or six years has been ignored, but, on the other hand, what we're proposing builds upon that with a different, more-focused plan," Van Epp said.
Goodman praised Related's groundwork, though he added the company was ultimately dropped because it "had a very full plate" of other Las Vegas projects occupying its attention.
In recent weeks, Newland twice sponsored focus groups that brought together more than a dozen U.S. and international development experts who discussed plans for portions of the site. The project has been a priority here and at Newland's San Diego headquarters, he added.
The development will target a younger crowd that "wants to be where the activity is," as well as baby boomers seeking a change from the suburban lifestyle, said Van Epp, who oversaw development of Summerlin during an eight-year tenure as president of The Howard Hughes Corp.
He hopes price points will reflect a wide diversity of incomes, though skyrocketing high-rise development costs could realistically price some residents out of the development.
Van Epp could not determine a price for the development since specific projects have yet to be nailed down. But he suggested multiplying 10 million square feet at $400 apiece to produce the $4 billion tally.
Outside Nevada, Newland is working on more than 60 communities in a dozen other states, including a 3,750-acre project near Estrella Mountain Ranch in Goodyear, Ariz.
It previously developed Mountain Park Ranch, Phoenix's first master-planned community, and is currently backing Dallas' Stonebridge Ranch and Cinco Ranch in Houston, which Robert Charles Lesser & Co, an independent real estate advisory firm, listed as two of the country's Top 20 master-planned developments for 2005.
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