Just an idea a few years ago, community center opens to serve poor area

Commissioner Myrna Williams presided over the opening ceremonies of the 28,000-square-foot facility that brings some new ideas to the Las Vegas area.

The community center will, for the first time in Clark County, provide a full-service Clark County Health District office - with immunization clinics for babies - and a Nevada Department of Welfare office in locations other than the agency's main centers.

It also provides a free breakfast and lunch for children every week day, a refuge for lonely seniors and full-service computer facilities for disadvantaged high school students to do class assignments. A Police Department substation is in the works.

The starkly orange building east of the Las Vegas Strip is in one of the state's poorest, most densely populated, highly transient and heavily ethnic ZIP codes.

There are no parks nearby and few recreation facilities.

That will change next year when the complex adds a recreation center and a park.

The price for the Cambridge Center project is $17.7 million, $10.5 million of which will be picked up by federal grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The remaining $7.2 million comes from the county.

"It's all very, very exciting for this area," Williams said.

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