Opening of 1st building at Civic Plaza delayed

A key step to expanding the city of Las Vegas’ presence downtown took place this week.

The final concrete pour for the Las Vegas Civic Plaza project, which looks to add two mixed-use office buildings and a large outdoor plaza space next to Las Vegas City Hall, took place on Wednesday, and Mayor Carolyn Goodman presented one of her famous lucky poker chips to CORE Construction.

CORE Construction is building the $165 million Civic Plaza, which is on track to be finished in spring 2025, said Jace Radke, a spokesman for the city of Las Vegas. While the project is on track to meet its completion date, the opening of the first building, originally planned for October, has been pushed back to 2025, he said.

The work on the city-owned Civic Plaza parcel started in October 2022. The project is located across from city hall on a city block, which is surrounded by Main and First streets and Clark and Bonneville avenues.

The Civic Plaza project will include two class-A office buildings that will have more than 248,000 square feet in total. These buildings will also have space for commercial operations and have amenities that include an art gallery, food concessions, an employee fitness center and meeting space for special events.

City documents indicate building one in the project will have a roughly 2,500-square-foot commercial space that’s suited for restaurants and the second building will have a roughly 2,600-square-foot space that could be suited for retail operations, fast food, fresh market or bakery uses.

The city of Las Vegas is undertaking this project to centralize its workforce since its current city hall can’t accommodate all of the city’s employees. Once the Civic Plaza opens about 550 employees will be at the main city hall building, while 250 employees will be at the Civic Plaza buildings and another 200 employees will be at the Municipal Court building, Radke said.

“The new Civic Plaza buildings will allow the city to bring many of its employees in offsite locations to the government corridor downtown, adding convenience for residents,” Radke said in an emailed statement. “At this point we expect to have human resources, parks, recreation and cultural affairs and innovation & technology at the Civic Plaza buildings as well as retail and other tenants.”

Currently, the Civic Plaza is on track to stay on its $165 million budget but it’s “subject to change as with all construction projects,” Radke said.

The outdoor plaza that is part of the Civic Plaza project will be able to host community events and gatherings. The plaza is accessible without going inside a city building but it’s “too early to speculate” if the plaza will have hours that it’s closed to the public, Radke said.

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.