‘Not the North Las Vegas of old’: Mayor lays out ambitious agenda nearly a decade after near-bankruptcy
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The tip of the Vegas Valley is leaving its past behind while laying out an ambitious agenda that once could not come to fruition amidst piling debt.
The shift in operational standing was made clear at the beginning of Thursday’s North Las Vegas State of the City address as Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown danced her way to the podium inside Aliante Casino & Hotel. In front of her was a sea of CEOs, county commissioners, nonprofits, city staff and constituents.
“The City of North Las Vegas is winning. Our residents are winning,” Goynes-Brown said, addressing the crowd.
In her roughly one-hour speech, attention was focused on increasing development that has helped the city become one of America’s fastest-growing: new police stations, shopping, business warehouses and residential projects.
It’s a much different position the city stands in than when it flirted with bankruptcy less than a decade ago.
“The City of North Las Vegas has grown in assessed valuation (more) than anywhere else in the southwest, from $4 billion in 2013 to $13.3 billion today,” Goynes-Brown said.
Looking ahead, she said more orange cones are coming and some already in place might stay longer.
A 5,000-acre UNLV campus is planned north of the 215 Beltway, according to the mayor, that focuses on medical and healthcare policy. UNLV, whose current Maryland Parkway campus is around 335 acres, will soon own 2,000 of those acres while the city has stewardship of the other 3,000 acres.
The city is also looking to create a “charter school incubator,” or a building where new charter school operators can conduct classes while their campuses are built elsewhere in the jurisdiction. Goynes-Brown calls it the first in the nation and says it will be located in a recently acquired 22,000-square-foot former childcare and charter school facility.
Additionally, as the city and nation suffer from shortages in law enforcement staffing, efforts are now in motion to provide free childcare to its “public safety team members,” addressing a barrier the city identified in retaining some officers.
All these projects have yet to be seen, like the 19-acre downtown district redevelopment project announced in 2022. While several of these land plots at the gateway to North Las Vegas remain barren, the mayor assures that the largest redevelopment project in the city’s history will see partial completion by this November, as stated during its 2022 groundbreaking.
“Portions of it will be ready. It’s going to be built in phases,” Goynes-Brown told reporters following the speech.
Though the agenda seems ambitious, the mayor says stigmas once attached to the city regarding its safety and quality of life have been defeated. Following through on each item may prove that.
“It’s not the North Las Vegas of old,” Goynes-Brown said. “We are so grateful and proud of the new North Las Vegas and we just want to keep that momentum going by keeping services that our residents want and need.”
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