Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Joe Downtown: Downtown Project converting trailers into ‘Skillshare’ classrooms

A once-empty lot at Eighth and Fremont streets, adjacent to the coming downtown Container Park, is now full of more than a dozen large trailers.

Not trailer homes though a rumor, however unlikely, was floating a month ago that the Downtown Project was looking to trailers as a way to fill a residential need as it prepares to move some 1,300 Zappos employees downtown this fall.

The real story is some of the trailers are slated to become Skillshare classrooms where technology, such as coding for smartphone apps, and a variety of crafts, subjects and practices will be taught. Other trailers will be used for other purposes, such as a UNLV class, said a Downtown Project spokesman.

It isn’t clear when the trailers will be outfitted and ready to become classrooms – the adjacent Downtown Container Park is still an estimated six months from opening – so in the meantime classes are being conducted in the Downtown Construction Zone trailers, 102 S. Seventh St.

Some classes are free, some command a small fee. Past, current and upcoming classes can be found at The School of Downtown Las Vegas website.

Two upcoming classes include:

• “Everything is Improv” by Jude Stanion (a Venture for America fellow working with the Downtown Project), 6-8 p.m. Monday. A beginner’s class, students will learn the basics of improvisation “and how these ideas can be translated to every aspect of your life.”

• “Chinese Medicine Take: What Ails You” by Tom Haskins, a recent transplant from Seattle who has studied Chinese medicine for decades. The first of three classes will be 6-7 p.m. April 22.

Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown, he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts building.

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