Food truck park planned for Las Vegas Arts District

So-called food truck parks have been popular in cities such as Portland and San Francisco, but could a similar venture succeed in Las Vegas’ Arts District?

One developer thinks so.

The city’s Planning Commission gave Main Street Investments II, LLC, the green light this week to move forward with its tentatively named Urban Food Lot, a collective space for mobile food vendors to serve residents on the go in the city’s creative enclave south of downtown.

“Downtown should represent inclusivity and innovation with progressive and artistic flair,” Sarah Jackson, the asset manager for Main Street Investments, said in a statement.

The open-air food lot will allow customers to choose meals for pick-up or delivery from as many as 10 food trucks planned to be parked on site. The project will occupy a roughly 7,400-square-foot vacant lot on the west side of Casino Center Boulevard just south of California Street, according to project documents.

Project to be done in steps

There will be no dining in and no seating, at least during the project’s first phase.

Future additions such as seating and restrooms, planned for a post-pandemic world, will also be predicated on the project’s success, according to Metroplex Group CEO/President Paul Murad, who represented the developer to the planning commission.

“When it’s successful, we would move it to a lot twice its size, four times its size,” Murad said by phone Thursday, noting the experimental and relatively temporary nature of the project at its present location.

The project’s license expires in two years, according to city documents.

Economic, cultural boon

The Urban Food Lot was pitched to the city as not only an ideal cultural fit for the Arts District but, most immediately, as a safe and economically viable dining option during the pandemic.

The project “will provide opportunities to small business owners who operate these food trucks and trailers to generate income to support their families while many catering and corporate events have stopped,” Jackson said.

The kitchens on wheels have become attractive options for chefs and diners amid the virus outbreak, with a wider variety of cuisines than ever represented among more than 300 food trucks presently licensed to operate in the valley.

Murad told planning commissioners on Tuesday evening that the food lot will drive new customers to surrounding businesses, create a sense of community and generally energize a vacant plot of land in a highly walkable portion of Las Vegas.

The developer, which has invested in downtown since 2012, also pledged that portions of rental fees paid by the trucks will be directed to local charities.

Sanitation, aesthetic among concerns

While the commission approved the project by a 4-2 vote Tuesday, it also expressed concerns: Sanitation would be critical and the look of the project’s planned border might not be up to par for the neighborhood. A chain-link fence with artificial boxwood hedge foliage is expected to surround the lot and could potentially be beautified with lights.

“It’s very important to those folks that have invested down there,” Commissioner Jeff Rogan said about the aesthetic. “It’s important to, I think, the city as well as the patrons that expect something a little bit more higher-end for that neighborhood.”

Rogan ultimately voted against the project because he said it needed more time to flesh out. Still, he believed it to be compatible with the district.

Murad said the Urban Food Lot was being modeled after the best food truck parks in the U.S. He noted that trucks will provide hand-washing stations, paid for by the landowner, and that upscale portable bathrooms were envisioned as part of the second phase.

“I think this could either die a quick death or it could be successful and hopefully you’re building more infrastructure in there (in the future),” said Planning Commissioner Trinity Haven Schlottman, who voted for the project.

Of those who either spoke to the commission or wrote comments to be read into the record, some supported repurposing a vacant plot that had become an eyesore and others worried about parking and were dismayed that competition might hurt brick-and-mortar restaurants already struggling to survive.

Up and running in coming months

The idea of food truck parks is not quite new to the city. Former Las Vegas Councilman Ricki Barlow, now a lobbyist, said a project was approved last year in northwest Las Vegas. And last summer, there was a park featured next to Fergusons Downtown.

A short-lived park elsewhere in the Arts District last year fizzled because, unlike Urban Food Lot, it was limited to operating 30 days at a time, according to Murad, preventing it from creating traction.

Murad estimated that, without an appeal filed to oppose the commission’s approval, the first trucks could be serving customers in 60 to 120 days — a timeframe that he said also depends on how quickly they can obtain necessary permits from the city.

Several spots, he added, have already been spoken for.

Contact Shea Johnson at sjohnson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Shea_LVRJ on Twitter.