Members of the Cambridge Area Management Council cheered when they heard an announcement by Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Program Management Team member Gary Baker at a Jan. 26 meeting.
He announced that the plan for a piece of property purchased by the LVCVA included a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department substation. The Bingo Suites, 700 Sierra Vista Drive, southeast of the Convention Center's South Hall, purchased for $10 million, will be torn down to make way for the substation.
The substation is just one part of the LVCVA's plan for expansion, which also includes additional meeting rooms in the south hall, a new connecting public lobby between the north and south halls, renovation of existing spaces, and new general session space. The designing and building phase of the substation, the first project to get under way in the plan, will begin in the second quarter of this year and the entire renovation project is expected to be completed by early 2011.
Baker said the goal is to keep the Las Vegas Convention Center modern and competitive.
The plan still has to go through many approval processes and reviews. Still, residents were pleased when they learned that the new 30,000-square-foot Metro Patrol Station was planned for construction.
For four years now, members of the CAMC have been working to combat problems they face in their neighborhoods -- spanning east and west from Paradise Road to Maryland Parkway and north and south from Desert Inn Road to Flamingo Road. Apartment owners, managers and business owners meet once per month and discuss better management practices and crime-fighting tactics.
The new substation is the type of project CAMC members hope for as they also look for their own solutions.
Dovie McCarthy manages the Beverly Alexander Apartments, 446 E. Twain Ave., a community for senior citizens. She said she will sometimes pretend to take photos of the prostitutes that come around her complex and tell them she's going to send the pictures to the police. She has no camera on her phone, but it usually scares them away, she said.
She said she also works hard to find more conventional solutions to the issues in her neighborhood.
She worked to get other property managers to attend CAMC meetings in the early days when no one initially wanted to attend. She said the sessions allow people to share ideas.
"Instead of sitting there, beating your head against the wall, you get input," McCarthy said. "That's why I go."
McCarthy does not see the substation as an instant cure for all the ills of her neighborhood, but said it will make a positive impact.
Police officers in the area also are very supportive of the inclusion of a substation in the LVCVA's future plan.
"Trust me, we do a lot of business here," said Capt. David O'Leary of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's South Central Area Command.
O'Leary said he remembered the area as a quiet neighborhood for retirees when he was growing up in Las Vegas.
"Only in the past 10 years, the Cambridge area has obtained a reputation for drugs, gangs and prostitution. We are working together to change this reputation. Only we as a group can accomplish the changes that are necessary to make our community a safe community," read a recent CAMC mission statement.
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