City hopes to finally bring buildings down

A judge's order prohibiting the city of Las Vegas from demolishing a dilapidated apartment complex that caught fire last week might be lifted today, allowing the city to move forward with razing the structures.

District Judge Mark Gibbons, who issued the order late on Friday, is giving the city a chance to show evidence that the buildings are a public nuisance and that demolition should continue this week as scheduled.

When Gibbons issued the order, he halted the city's four-month long effort to get the 50 structures out of the neighborhood south of Lake Mead Boulevard near Simmons Street and Holly Avenue.

The buildings were once the Sierra Nevada Arms publicly-assisted apartment complex and are now owned by local contractor Mike Kinzler, who filed the request for the restraining order.

Kinzler was sold the buildings through salvage rights from the company hired to wreck the buildings, Southwest Colored Rock.

Southwest was hired by Shepherd Hills Development Corp., a nonprofit developer, which paid the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development $1 for the land and buildings.

HUD allocated $448,000 to Shepherd Hills for asbestos to be removed and for the buildings to be taken down. But, since Southwest sold them to Kinzler, the buildings have remained on the property.

Kinzler said previously he would be moving the buildings to other locations in Clark County where he would remodel them and rent them out.

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