Interior demolition has begun at the Fifth Street School as part of a major renovation to the facility, located at Las Vegas Boulevard and Clark Avenue in the downtown area.
The Las Vegas City Council voted last month to accept a proposal by the Nevada School of the Arts that will transform the city's first elementary school into a cultural center, complete with classroom space, a gallery, a visitor's center and more.
The arts school plans to make use of 5,300 square feet of the available 28,900 square feet in the building.
"We felt this organization would be a perfect fit for what we are trying to achieve -- rebuilding the Fifth Street School and turning it into a cultural oasis -- an intellectual agora -- in the middle of Manhattanized downtown Las Vegas," said Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman.
An agora is a place of congregation, especially an ancient Greek marketplace.
The Nevada School of the Arts is a nonprofit organization that promotes music education. Along with it, two previous tenants will return to the Fifth Street School once renovations are done.
The UNLV Downtown Design Center, home to the UNLV College of Fine Arts and the School of Architecture, will be housed in the school, as well as the UNLV Modern Letters and Writers in Exile program, which allows writers banished from their native countries to work in a safe environment. The UNLV facilities are expected to take up about 7,600 square feet.
An additional 12,600 square feet of the refurbished school will showcase a shared performance and gallery space in the former gym, which will be managed by one of the building's future tenants, according to city spokeswoman Diana Paul.
"In addition, almost 1,600 square feet will be used to house a new downtown Las Vegas visitors and information center, which will be operated by the city," she said.
The school was originally put up by the federal government in 1936. It was Las Vegas' first permanent elementary school, and served grades 1 through 6 for 30 years.
Designed in the Spanish Mission style, the building was a solid piece of work, featuring 10-inch-thick concrete walls and red tile roofing. A highlight, said Paul, is its interior Mediterranean-style courtyard with a vintage tiled fountain.
The demolition under way is designed to clear out overlapping offices to provide space for the improvements. Structural and mechanical retrofitting are expected to begin later this year. The renovated structure ought to be ready for occupancy by mid-2007, Paul said. The exterior will be restored to its original appearance.
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