A look at the Boulder City Water Filtration Plant, which was constructed in 1931, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020.
Monday, March 2, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Nestled in a historic residential neighborhood near downtown Boulder City is a former water filtration plant, one of the oldest intact buildings in town that predates the Hoover Dam.
Even though the windows are boarded up, the brick structure is remarkably unique, dotted with artwork to beautify the shuttered building and surrounded by a community garden and sculpture park. Local restaurant owner and Boulder City native Grant Turner calls it “the coolest building in town.”
Many of his neighbors agree. In fact, some residents love the city-owned building and surrounding park so much that its future has become a controversial topic in the city of 16,000.
Local developers have tried from time to time to purchase the property and turn it into something else. Turner proposed converting the building into a brewery in 2017, and his father had previously tried to buy it as a private residence, according to city documents.
But historic preservationists and park neighbors have criticized these proposals given the building’s historical significance and because the area has been a park since 1994, said Boulder City Councilman James Adams.
“A lot of residents have had so many concerns because, for the last 10-plus years, there’s always been talk about turning it into something else,” Adams said.
The dispute over the building came to a head on Feb. 12, when the Boulder City Council voted unanimously to rezone the property at 300 Railroad Ave. as a park. It was previously zoned commercially, keeping open the possibility of redevelopment by a private enterprise.
With the zoning change, the area surrounding the building must remain a park as already defined in city documents, although the building could be leased for commercial use, said Mayor Kiernan McManus.
“I felt that by putting that zoning change forward, we were simply confirming what everyone has agreed to for decades,” said McManus, who was elected mayor last spring on a platform favoring historic preservation.
McManus downplayed the controversy over the building, saying it is being driven by a few people who “had other plans” for it. But Turner said the issue is part of a larger discussion in town about growth and development — something Boulder City has historically deprioritized compared with the fast-growing communities in the Las Vegas Valley — and reflects the business community’s frustrations with the current mayor and council.
Turner started a petition against the zoning change at the park, which hundreds of residents signed, including former mayors Rod Woodbury and Roger Tobler and 28 business owners in town, he said.
“I cannot recall a time the political environment in Boulder City was this contentious,” he said.
Adams, who was also elected last spring with a pledge to preserve Boulder City’s history, said the community seems to be at a crossroads when it comes to private development’s role in historic preservation. “I think there’s kind of a difference of opinion of whether the best means to preserve historic places is either through private or public initiatives,” he said.
Debates on public matters are nothing new in Boulder City, but this one has certainly been significant, said Dennis McBride, longtime resident and director of the Nevada State Museum.
McBride wants to keep the former water treatment plant under public ownership, perhaps as a museum, and maintain the park to honor the wishes of the individual who started it. After the Bureau of Reclamation turned the building over to the city in the 1985, Boulder City resident and philanthropist Teddy Fenton took an interest in the building, he said. Fenton devised a vision for a sculpture park adjacent to it, donating money to make the park happen.
“It was her last dream come true in the city she loved,” said McBride, a personal friend of Fenton’s before she died.
Years after the sculpture park opened in 1994, residents started a community garden on the other side of the building. Today, the building itself opens occasionally for tours and special community events, while the surrounding greenery is enjoyed by many year-round, McBride said.
“The citizens of Boulder City have assumed it’s a public space, and to turn it into a private enterprise would be sort of a betrayal of the Bureau of Reclamation’s agreement with the city, Teddy’s memory and the community gardens,” McBride said.
The problem that Turner sees with that argument is that the building is closed and inaccessible most of the year, representing a lost opportunity for residents and developers who have sought to do something with it.
Boulder City real estate agent Cokie Booth feels similarly. Everyone in town cares about the building, but no one has presented a plan for getting it back into shape, she said.
“Having lived here for long, I think that it’s just a beautiful building and I hate to see it sit there and rot,” Booth said.
As for the council’s unanimous approval of the zoning change, Turner thinks the city will eventually change course.
“If you look 10 years, 50 years or 100 years in the future, there’s no way that awesome building sits there inactive,” Turner said. “All they’re doing is delaying the inevitable and costing Boulder City jobs and opportunities.”
Nonetheless, those who live in the neighborhood surrounding the building are adamant about blocking major development there. Many showed up on Feb. 12 to support the zoning change.
“I think it’s very important to the community to have that as a park and to have the filtration plant, which is a beautiful building there, used for public use,” said Frances Meyer, who lives on Ash Street adjacent to the park.
Now that the change has been approved protecting the area as a park, the Boulder City History and Arts Foundation hopes to get the building back into shape, said foundation president Ray Turner. All of the building’s structural problems preventing it from being opened to the public could be fixed with public dollars, donations or a combination of the two, Ray Turner said.
“It’s not going to take millions,” he said. “A quarter of a million would make that building accessible.”
While McBride is grateful that the zoning change moved forward, he also wants to see the community divides over the issue begin to heal.
“I hate to see Boulder City in turmoil,” McBride said. “These things are always resolved in Boulder City, but not without a lot of yelling and pointing and nasty words.”
