Without knowing the specific motels/stretch of Fremont East in question, it is difficult to speculate, since there are many abandoned, derelict, and razed motels in that neck of the woods, where the trendification of the Arts District has yet to have extended its presence as yet. As a March article in CityLife described:
"East of the Container Park, east of the El Cortez, the investment boom appears to wither, but even here, change is coming ... At Ninth and Fremont, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Rebekahs Lodge faces east to a large empty lot surrounded by wire mesh fencing. The Ambassador East sign on Fremont stands tall, but it is a silent sentinel for a hotel that no longer exists ...
Move east on the long, slow slope from downtown, and you can just about see where the rising tide ends. It might be at the distinctive Fergusons Downtown Motel at 11th Street. The Fergusons’ round central cupola and the distinctive brick style, covered in bright white paint with blue trim, marks it as a mid-century Las Vegas native. Fergusons — closed, surrounded by wire fencing — is one of a string of hotel-motels that provide cheap weekly and monthly rentals along Fremont. The hotels, some open, some shuttered, provide varying degrees of eye-popping architectural details, signage and dilapidation.
"The plasma center is cattycorner from Howard Hollingsworth Elementary, and across the street from yet another large empty lot. More down-and-out motels — the Purple Sage, the Hialeah and then, incongruously, a sign of investment even this far east: new loft-style townhouses on the south side of the street."
While the outward signs may still be of decay, the good news is that the buildings you saw have very likely been bought up by Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project, which has been cobbling together real estate at premium prices, like the aforementioned Ferguson Motel (1028 Fremont Street), for which the enterprise paid $5 million back in December 2012, with plans to convert into artists’ studios, bars, coffee shops, and the like, in keeping with one of Hsieh’s crucial six-point criteria for considering applications for grants etc.: "Does your idea contribute to the community in some way?".
The billionaire CEO of Zappos.com has amassed $350 million to reinvent downtown Las Vegas with cultural-oriented schemes such as this. Of that total sum, $200 million has been earmarked for real estate: One of the project’s goals is "urban residential density of at least 100 people per acre," so the motels in question may be repurposed as apartments or condos. "We are helping to build a community-focused, dense urban core made up of high-density residential and a multitude of spaces to gather, most of them powered by passionate entrepreneurs," reads Downtown Project verbiage.
The motels could also be repurposed as small business venues, like the Ferguson scheme.
According to blogger Ondi Timoner, Hsieh "believes that greater connectivity between urban dwellers is not only achieved through technology, but that a key driver is creating a walkable city to foster urban collision or serendipitous encounters between people that spur innovation and nurture a city’s economy and culture … Hsieh has already purchased over 28 acres in the downtown area to date, and there is more to come …"
It’s the Downtown Project that purchased the Western, after which Hsieh’s development partner, Andrew Donner, ventured out past the defunct casino to purchase the Dragon Hotel, at 117 N. 9th Street, a move about which our Stiffs & Georges blogger David McKee speculated at the time: The transfer of deed [hadn’t] been recorded yet but a Donner rep says he paid $2 million. That’s awfully ‘george’ for a third of an acre. At that price, he’s not buying the Dragon for its palatial cash flow. And since the ‘Fremont East’ area is the trendiest in town, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that condo conversion is the intended fate of these two hostelries."
We called Resort Gaming Group and got a Donner assistant, John Curran. He was apologetic about not being able to speak to Hsieh and Donner’s intentions. "We’re keeping a lot of plans internal," Curran said. "We don’t say anything until it’s concrete." So, in other words, we may not know just yet what Hsieh and Donner are going to do with those motels – but neither do they. The bottom line, however, is that they are doing something, which no one else had been doing in this area for a long time (aside from peddling drugs and pimping women, obviously); whether the Utopian vision of its investors is overly optimistic and naive, time will tell, but so far there are no signs that downtown has reached saturation point when it comes to hip bars, urban lofts, creative collectives, community recreation facilities, etc. We look forward to seeing the next wave and wish nothing but success to all involved.
