What recession? Vegas mayor wants face-lift for downtown

L as Vegas Travel north on the Strip, past the glittering islands of the Bellagio, Excalibur, Venetian and other resorts, and -- keep going -- it finally appears like a worn-out showgirl at the end of a parade: downtown.

Here, Binion's, Main Street Station, Four Queens and other casinos -- "vintage Las Vegas," as downtown's promoters like to call it -- beckon the budget-conscious amid wedding chapels, older bars, check-cashing stores and a few newer attractions like an outlet mall.

But Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman is determined to give the area a face-lift, and not even a recession will stand in his way. Let the rest of municipal America tighten belts and hunker down.

Goodman, a former mob lawyer whose outsize personality leads him to offer poker chips as business cards, says it is time for the city to join forces with private developers for a project he promotes as a linchpin to downtown's revival.

The project would include a new city hall (never mind that the existing one, built in 1973, has an addition only 6 years old), a casino resort (the first in downtown in some three decades) and office, residential and commercial space (because, the developers of this project assert, the eventual economic recovery will create demand for it).

The plan includes a complicated land swap and a lease-back arrangement -- "a college football parlay card, in which everything has to fall

The Las Vegas Review-Journal said in an editorial.

For taxpayers, the bottom line could mean borrowing $150 million to $267 million, with tax revenue from new development paying it back over time.

Goodman insists that the project is a sure bet, even as other large developments on the Strip and elsewhere are being scaled back or postponed.

But while the city hall project has sailed through the City Council, it is confronting unusually stiff resistance from one of Nevada's most powerful unions, Culinary Local 226.

The union, which has 55,000 members, calls the proposal ill-advised in hard economic times, when thousands of people have been laid off from casinos that have suffered declines in attendance and gambling revenue.

It has collected enough signatures to place two measures on the ballot in June intended to block the plan and give voters a greater say in redevelopment.