Metro wants to maintain downtown headquarters

Metro Police plan to go ahead Tuesday with efforts to obtain a 10-acre parcel next to the Clark County Government Center for its new headquarters -- land that arts and city of Las Vegas officials want for a performing arts center.

Metro Police Undersheriff Richard Winget said today that the city's offer of an alternative site for police headquarters at Stella Lake Street and Mount Mariah Drive off Lake Mead and Martin L. King boulevards is good, but the old Union Pacific Railroad property is the best location.

"As good as it is, it (the site offered by the city) is not in line with the master plan we have been working on with the county," Winget said. "The site on the old UP property is best because it is centralized -- close to the justice center, close to the jail and close to the county offices.

"It is just the optimum site."

The County Commission is scheduled to hear the matter at Tuesday's meeting. Sheriff Jerry Keller is expected to address the board on behalf of police.

Winget said the police department was promised the old UP site long ago when the late Sheriff John Moran made an agreement with former County Manager Pat Shalmy at a time when the land was a dusty railroad yard.

The city offered the police department the alternative site in the city's Las Vegas Enterprise Park because it is adjacent to the proposed FBI building site.

Should Metro build its headquarters there, it would give a highly visible law enforcement presence in West Las Vegas, an area that is struggling to overcome decades of crime and decay with revitalization projects.

However, Winget notes that Metro already plans to have a police presence in the city's Enterprise Park with a substation that it plans to build there.

Police originally wanted a 20-acre site, but now plan to make up for the shortage of land by building a parking garage on the 10-acre site just south of the Regional Transportation Commission building on Grand Central Parkway.

Metro currently spends $3.9 million a year on 20 office buildings it leases throughout the valley. That is expected to increase to $5 million by 2007.

The new administrative building would include detective bureaus, a forensic laboratory and the majority of police functions, Winget said.

However, the Las Vegas Performing Arts Center Foundation also has its heart set on the old railroad site that county officials say is worth about $10 million. The foundation has asked to lease or buy the property from the county for $1 and plans to raise $100 million to build their upscale facility.

Four years ago, the county delivered a draft lease agreement for the land to the performing arts foundation, but the organization never signed it.

Influential people involved with the performing arts project include Elaine Wynn, of Mirage Resorts, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones and Boyd Gaming Corp. President Don Snyder.

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