Thursday, April 27, 2006 | 7:12 a.m.
The construction of condominiums in downtown Las Vegas is being welcomed by business owners in the growing Arts District - but creating anxiety among some artists who fear the loss of affordable housing.
The clash of lifestyles - marked by the construction of high rises at the expense of artists' apartments - is expected to surface tonight when the city Planning Commission considers a 43-story condo project at Casino Center Boulevard and Colorado Avenue. The high-rise building would replace four duplexes occupied by artists.
The developer, Mythic Management, already has purchased the property for nearly $3 million.
"They're going to be tearing down a lot of work by people who built the Arts District," said Dray, an artist who goes by one name and who will be displaced by the proposed project.
But a downtown art gallery owner is not sympathetic to the artists.
"It's development. We need it desperately," said Jack Solomon, owner of S2 Art, a gallery at Main Street and Charleston Boulevard. "This is the real world. I have to make money."
The collision between high-rise residential projects and art studios is something Solomon has seen elsewhere - New York's Soho District. Many artists who had established themselves in the Manhattan art district found themselves displaced by upscale development, although more successful artists aggressively maintained their presence there.
Artists purchased buildings to entrench their presence in Soho, Solomon said, noting that "you could buy into them cheap and convert them."
Residents of Las Vegas' Arts District may not have that option because of the rising costs of downtown real estate. For some, the strategy is to try to block the encroachment of condos politically.
They hope to make their arguments tonight that condos are not conducive to an art community, in part because of the scale of the project and because many of the condo owners are not expected to be full-time residents. The artists predict most will use the units as getaway or second homes.
Tuesday night, about 20 artists and other downtown residents gathered at Casino Center Boulevard and Colorado Avenue. Newport Lofts, another condo project under construction, was in the background.
"Those are great," resident Travis Steinline said, "but how many people are actually going to be residents? What they're proposing is not making this a community. It's making it a resort."
But others, such as Solomon, are excited by the condo plans, and said the effect on artists who would no longer be able to find downtown housing was not his immediate concern.
"I'm in favor of successful artists living here," he said. "But I think it's a waste of money to subsidize an artist who can't make a living."
If local artists were serious about their work, he said, "they would have thought about that."
But artists who helped create the district say they're too financially strapped to invest in the real estate as owners.
"My main concern is that they're losing places where they can afford to live and work," said Cindy Funkhouser, owner of an antique store, Funk House, across the street from the proposed condo project that is to be discussed tonight.
Some cities - such as Reno, Providence, R.I., and Seattle - offer subsidies so artists can live in downtown lofts that combine working and residential space.
Funkhouser said subsidized lofts would help sustain Las Vegas' Arts District.
Solomon, who owns property in the district, said he'd rather see "professional" artists move into the area.
"I don't believe that artists should be subsidized as higher-than-first-class citizens," Solomon said. "There are thousands and thousands of artists who make money.
"The thing that will make the Arts District (successful) is not to subsidize failing artists," he said. "Galleries make an art district. When we open first-class galleries, all benefit."
Las Vegas is notorious for imploding its history, and the artists who gathered Tuesday night said they worry that condos will destroy the very ambience that the Arts District was intended to create.
Steinline says the area is unique compared to the tract homes of the suburbs.
"We're in the homes of the people who first came here," Steinline said. "Why tear this down?"
Some artists said they hoped a community center would be built in the district to promote more art projects and provide a working place for struggling artists.
Dick Geyer, president of The Arts District Neighborhood Association, said the area could use the help. But he said new condos would also help by generating business in the neighborhood.
"The reality is that there's no foot traffic in the Arts District in the daytime," Geyer said.
The condos, he said, will generate an "enormous amount of wealth to the city" and, for instance, transform used furniture stores into bars, galleries and shops.
But whether future condo residents will support local artists is unknown.
"They're not building them for people who live and work here," said Jeanne Asmussen, a resident in the historic John S. Park neighborhood, which is in its own battle against the high-rise condos. "They're building them for people who pop in, pop out."
Veronika Holmes, owner of Gypsy Caravan antiques on Colorado Avenue, said she welcomes the condos - even if they're filled with tourists - because they will generate business for hers and other antique stories in the area.
How about the artists? "My heart goes out to them," she said, "but they have to understand that it's for the betterment of the community. The antique dealers are the backbone of the street."
Artist Christine Wetzel said she and others who live and work in the doomed apartments had renovated their interior spaces, painted murals on the exterior walls and created a sense of community.
"There's got to be a solution," she said of the clash between condos and the art community. "We really put an investment in it. There's always more than one solution."
Steinline, Dray and Wetzel hope the city will craft a compromise that includes affordable housing for artists and height restrictions on the buildings so they will not ruin the character of the Arts District.
Solomon is planning to build Villa Moderne, a four-story building that will have ground-floor galleries and living/work spaces for artists on the other three floors. But, he said, "I'm not going to give them away."
Funkhouser said she hoped the new condo developers would set aside space for artists. "But they paid a lot of money. They want to make a lot of money."
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