Town Center vote delayed

After 2 1/2 hours of often contentious debate from homeowners, the Las Vegas City Council on Monday tabled for two weeks a vote on a massive retail development in Town Center because of controversy over signs.

Residents told the City Council that it would be a mistake to allow exceptions to the strict Town Center design standards approved last year.

"We would like to believe that the promises made to the people of this area would be kept," Louise Ruskamp, speaking on behalf of 200 residents of the Tule Springs development, said.

Olympic Nevada Inc. and Centennial & Rancho Partners LLC asked the council to approve a site development plan review of an 827,000-square-foot retail shopping center and auto mall at the southwest corner of Centennial Parkway and U.S. 95 -- the future site of the northern beltway.

During the past 15 months, the developer has met with residents on several occasions and had a role in developing the standards for the 2,000 acres zoned for the Town Center.

Olympic Nevada's sign plan, however, asks the council to allow three 90-foot-high signs by the future freeway overpasses to advertise the three anchor stores to passing motorists. The design standards prohibit the use of pole signs -- although they do not mention the term "pylon" signs that the developer uses to describe what is planned.

The city's planning staff also had a problem with the site plan's treatment of the access road into the retail center. As a result of the signs and the road, the city's planning staff recommended that the council deny the plan.

"With two very minor exceptions, we either meet or far exceed the standards that are in this (Town Center Design Standards) book," Olympic Nevada spokesman Mark Fiorentino said.

Fiorentino cited contributions of millions to the developer for landscaping and off-site improvements to Durango Drive as a reason the exceptions for the signs should be allowed.

Eventually the freeway overpass will be 60 feet high and the signs need to be 90 feet high in order to be seen by motorists, he said.

The other signs originally included in Olympic Nevada's plan have been scaled back. Fiorentino said no signs in the development are higher than 16 feet, with the exception of a nonadvertising structure in the center of the development that stands 45 feet high.

Ruskamp said she considered the signs "appalling" and is shocked that they are needed to attract customers given the retail center's location next to major roads that will largely be used only for the nearby residents.

"It's not like somebody's going to be driving through this area, see a sign and say, 'Look, honey, there's a Wal-Mart, let's buy some toilet paper,' " Ruskamp added.

Stephen Reilly, who lives in the area's Timber Lake development, said he was "vehemently opposed" to the signs.

"At what point do you stop bending the rules?" he asked Councilman Larry Brown, who has worked on Town Center since its inception.

Most of the 20-some residents who spoke or handed in petitions said the issue was about trusting their elected leaders and keeping future development of Town Center to the standards to which they agreed.

"This is a critical juncture," Frank Maxwell of the Sheep Mountain Homeowners Association said. "If you approve this today, you will be unable to hold the line."

Representatives for the developer, who filled two rows of the council chambers, looked exasperated by the end of the debate. One of the project's backers rose from his seat red-faced in apparent disgust after Brown proposed the item be held until Feb. 8 at 5 p.m.

"If we don't have the signage, we don't have the project," Fiorentino warned as several of the audience members applauded his statement.

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