Question of the Day - 06 August 2019

Things are relatively quiet in Hsiehville, although the past few months have seen a flurry of stories about Mr. Hsieh in the likes of Forbes, focusing on his workplace culture.

Hsieh's Downtown Project was quietly renamed DTP Companies and the old Downtown Project media email was disconnected. The Downtown Project may have kind of faded into the background, although it's not dormant. It recently completed a $2.5 million renovation of the 56-year-old 88-room Downtowner Motel. Some of the quintessentially Hsiehsian touches were the addition of a six-hole putting green and the combination of the check-in desk with a (new) cocktail bar.

This year has also seen Zappos' corporate headquarters — not so long ago Las Vegas’ City Hall — being put back on the block. A realtor was quick to reassure local media that Zappos was not going anywhere, holding as it did a multi-year lease, but the builder-owner was simply looking to monetize an asset: “It’s purely a landlord selling it as an investment property.” 

Other DTP projects included the conversion of the Ferguson Motel downtown into retail, restaurants, and a food-truck park. The highlight of Ferguson was the debut of Dan Krohmer’s Japanese restaurant Hatsumi, its menu shaped by Krohmer’s experiences in the Land of the Rising Sun. Bobby Silva, late of Momofuku at the Cosmopolitan, came aboard as chef de cuisine. The aim is to create “subliminal happiness” in the style of a 1980s' Japanese hotel bar.

Container Park is still going strong, with nightly live entertainment, combining a modest-sized nightclub with a large children's playground, highlighted by a 33-foot slide. Visitation seems to be a 50/50 mix of tourists and locals. One cube has been converted to an all-white art installation that visitors are invited to decorate with stickers.

DTP continues to capitalize on its real-estate holdings, converting seven former motels to apartment buildings. DTP owned-and-operated businesses include three restaurants (The Smashed Pig, Downtown Place, and Big Ern’s BBQ), a hotel (Oasis at the Gold Spike), various meeting spaces, and Oak & Ivy bar, whose cocktails we can vouch for from personal experience. 

The company's real-estate portfolio also includes the former André’s restaurant and the onetime Western Casino, now converted into meeting space. The ex-Sears store now hosts VegeNation restaurant and Two Bald Brothers; the John E. Carson Building has gone from being a hotel to office spaces; and office space is available in the 701 Bridger Building. In our estimation, Hsieh seems to have morphed from grand sweeping visions of downtown change to incremental doable steps toward greater livability.

He’s also gained a downtown-redevelopment rival in casino mogul Derek Stevens. Stevens has opened Circa Sports, with new books at the Golden Gate and the D; launched a Circa-branded sports-betting application for Android and iOs; hosted a one-day “Trailer Station” on the old Mermaids site; and of course will open the Strip-style megaresort Circa in a year and a half. Time will tell if the downtown-reinvention race goes to the tortoise (Hsieh) or the hare (Stevens). Not that Las Vegas isn’t big enough for both of them.