Former councilman urges state help for Gerson Park

CARSON CITY -- Former Las Vegas City Councilman Frank Hawkins today urged an Assembly committee to allocate $2.8 million to help revitalize the 40-acre Gerson Park housing complex in West Las Vegas.

Hawkins, executive director of the nonprofit Community Development Programs Center, told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee that 301 boarded-up cinder block homes have been torn down at the site. Construction will start on the first phase of a mixed-use, mixed-income housing project in May, he said.

The project, to cost an estimated $50 million and to be completed in December 2001, calls for 196 apartments for low- and medium-income families, 88 senior citizen units, 125 townhouses and 184 single family residences.

The committee will vote later on Assembly Bill 415 to provide the funds.

More than $700,000 was already spent demolishing the old homes, Hawkins told the committee, adding that the 1993 race riots were concentrated in the area.

As part of the program, Hawkins said his organization hopes to help renters become homeowners. Community Development Programs is buying the site from the Las Vegas Housing Authority for $2.5 million.

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