The Enthusiast

Lead Photo Should we turn the old Ambassador Hotel site into a Middle Eastern market?

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Oct 24, 2012 (5 p.m.)

The possibilities seem endless for the seven acre space.

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Lead Photo Are Downtown landowners waiting for a Hsieh payday?

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Oct 17, 2012 (4:17 p.m.)

Are owners in denial about the crash?

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Lead Photo Is Downtown Las Vegas in danger of gentrification?

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Oct 10, 2012 (5:47 p.m.)

Will wealthy yuppies and retail outlets like J. Crew soon dominate the area?

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Lead Photo Keeping up with Downtown development can be exhausting

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Oct 3, 2012 (4:27 p.m.)

There's no shortage of great projects going on Downtown. Check out our list.

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Lead Photo J. Patrick Coolican comes out of party retirement at the new D

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Sep 26, 2012 (2:14 p.m.)

It was time to come out of a six-month retirement from Downtown carousing and check in on the scene.

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Lead Photo Can we solve the homeless situation by … giving them a place to live?

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Sep 19, 2012 (4:11 p.m.)

A prominent business person suggested to me that to solve the homeless problem Downtown, we should buy an empty subdivision in the suburbs and move everybody in. This person was joking, but there’s actually some validity to that idea. Why? Well, that’s what we’re already doing, and it’s working.

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Lead Photo After years of ridicule, Neonopolis is poised to become a must-visit destination

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Sep 12, 2012 (4:41 p.m.)

Neonopolis, the behemoth mall-ish structure at Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont, has collected a number of inventive descriptions and nicknames. Its own developer, Rohit Joshi, compared it to barracks. A reviewer on Yelp tagged it “Necropolis” (as in, burial grounds). CityLife writer Amy Kingsley inventively compared it to a bank vault.

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Lead Photo Downtown desperately needs more trails, but don’t hold your breath

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Sep 5, 2012 (4:36 p.m.)

There's a long-range plan for trails downtown, but where's the money going to come from?

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Lead Photo Downtown desperately needs more parks. Who will step up?

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Aug 29, 2012 (1:18 p.m.)

It's hard to imagine a great city without great parks.

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Lead Photo Small businesses, big beginnings: Talking with Downtown Project’s Don Welch

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Aug 22, 2012 (4:52 p.m.)

The Downtown Project’s plan to open dozens of small businesses in the next few years after picking from hundreds of at-times highly creative submissions can seem rather freewheeling, like a certain locally famous online apparel retailer.

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Lead Photo Las Vegas has the potential to be more of a fashion industry player

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Aug 15, 2012 (3 p.m.)

Downtown's upcoming Fashion Lab just might help.

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Lead Photo Dissecting the Downtown glut of bail bondsmen

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Aug 8, 2012 (4:29 p.m.)

How bail bonds work, what the bondsmen do and more.

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Lead Photo A food truck influx has Downtown restaurants—and local government—crying foul

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Aug 1, 2012 (2:24 p.m.)

We often hear that businesses wish government would merely get out of the way. Just as often, however, I see businesses lobbying government to kill off the competition. In the latest example, the Las Vegas City Council is mulling protecting Downtown brick-and-mortar restaurants from their wily new competitors: food trucks. As my Las Vegas Sun colleague Joe Schoenmann reported recently, the owner of Uncle Joe’s Pizza on Fremont East was outraged that “there, in front of his pizza joint, was parked a food truck. And it was selling pizza, no less.”

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Lead Photo Downtown’s dining options are about to explode. Hungry?

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Jul 25, 2012 (4:10 p.m.)

For years, Fremont East was a fun place to drink, especially if you were so committed to drinking (you know who you are) that you didn’t want food to get in the way. Now, however, a restaurant boomlet is coming Downtown. What had been slow and steady progress is quickening, with a pile of new spots opening, in construction or stewing in someone’s imagination.

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Lead Photo Dodger Stadium in downtown LA shows that adding a ballpark is no magic bullet

J. Patrick Coolican | Wed, Jul 18, 2012 (5:54 p.m.)

Las Vegas could learn something from the City of Angels.

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A&E

Photos: Tiger Woods keeps Lindsey Vonn hidden in Las Vegas amid engagement …
Amid online buzz of buying engagement rings, golf great Tiger Woods was all smiles as he walked hand-in-hand with Olympic skiing champion girlfriend …
In writing his book, Oscar Goodman ‘found myself to be a hero’
Oscar Goodman’s autobiography, “Being Oscar,” is being released Tuesday by Weinstein Books. The former three-term Las Vegas mayor sat down with me for an extensive interview that covered topics including representing the mob as a lawyer, his 12 years at City Hall and his half-century love affair with his wife, …
Celebrity preview: Tiger Woods, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Prince, Madonna and Kid …
It’s one of the fiercest and most competitive entertainment weekends Las Vegas has ever seen, even with Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and their country …

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Featured Cocktail

Cocktail of the Week May 15, 2013
by Sabrina Chapman

The Golden Pillar: An architectural cocktail built for XS

This Sunday, XS nightclub celebrates the grand reopening of its after-dark pool party, Night Swim. Along with the bash comes a new offering of signature cocktails served by the pitcher, ...
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