7 ms·

Does anyone know how his "The Downtown Project" (aka Vegas revitalization) is going?

by ipsum2 6y ago

reaperducer 6y ago
According to the newspapers, poorly. Very little to show for it.
- blnqr 6y ago
  That's exactly right. The best bookstore in town shut down. The best coffee shop is still there, a wonderful place, but not much else, sadly. (Disclosure: I am a 24-year local in tech who really wanted it to work.)
  - prawn 6y ago
    Did he or others invest as much as was originally implied? I remember it being spoken of as a long-term project. If it was a little shipping container mall, that's a bit of a meagre attempt. You'd need to loss-lead dramatically to attract people across from The Strip to visit.
    - blnqr 6y ago
      Great question, and you hit it squarely: Hsieh and company did not invest the $350 million (!) as originally announced https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/17/15645/zappos-ceo-bets-350-million-on-a-las-vegas-startup-scene/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/17/15645/zappos-ceo...
      - prawn 6y ago
        For just part of $350m, you could comfortably bankroll 20 small businesses to effectively create the dynamic you wanted. Couple that with some drawcards to lure tourists across, free travel, etc. That would've worked.
        blnqr 6y ago
        You got that right, 20 startups or even 200. And they might have made a great return. Instead, they focused on bars and public art (which I think is cool btw) and made a fundamental real estate mistake by loudly announcing where they were going to buy and how much they had to spend.
bluedevil2k 6y ago
Have you driven the blocks around downtown Vegas lately? It's very seedy, full of pawn shops and payday lending stores, liquor stores and closed stores. Streets are dirty, numerous homeless people. I admire his goal of revitalizing it, but it didn't work.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  It's too bad, because I really wish Vegas could somehow magically turn into a tech jobs hub. It's got a lot going for it: No state income tax. Cheap housing. Minimal regulation. Cheap, relatively private LLCs. World class restaurants. World class entertainment/shows (even if touristy). Casinos, if you're into it. If NorCal is a heaven for people who like outdoor activities, then Vegas is the heaven for people who like the indoors. The only down side is it's really hot, but going indoors fixes this. If my employer opened an office anywhere near Las Vegas, I'd list my house and call the moving truck the next day.
  - modeless 6y ago
    I probably wouldn't mind Vegas except for one extremely important thing. The whole place reeks of cigarettes and I can't stand it. I don't ever want to live in a place where indoor smoking is legal.
    - ckdarby 6y ago
      Agree, Vegas doesn't fit with the tech hipsters and eco friendly Silicon valley types.
    - smabie 6y ago
      Oh man that sounds great, I've always been disappointed that I missed out on the era when smoking in the office was okay.
      - Nas808 6y ago
        I had 2 years of smoking in the building before it was banned and I don't miss my clothes constantly smelling like tobacco smoke.
godzillabrennus 6y ago
Very poorly. VTF folks have also moved on.
obmelvin 6y ago
I visited Detroit in May 2016 and was very taken aback by the revitalization. Granted, it was Memorial Day weekend + Movement Festival [0] so the city was certainly not in it's normal day-to-day look, but Dan Gilbert's money [1] appeared well spent to the eyes of a visitor. I learned about it from talking to my Lyft drivers, who all seemed to think positively about the effort. [0] great techno music in the genre's birthplace [1] Founder of Quicken Loans - recent article with some extra context https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2020/07/09/dan-gilbert-can-afford-quicken-ipo-and-detroit-development-role/5401282002/ https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2020/07/09/dan-gi...
- segmondy 6y ago
  It looks even much better than 2016 at least earlier this year before the pandemic. Haven't been there since the shutdown.
- paxys 6y ago
  If you put aside economic problems Detroit just has so much more going for it in terms of history, culture, location, small business, family ties etc. than Las Vegas. That is why dumping money into it has shown immediate returns. When you say Vegas 100% of people are going to (justifiably) think casinos and not much more.
- v77 6y ago
  Unfortunately Gilbert seems to be at the end of his life. We'll see if Detroit can continue its revitalization without his money.
geophile 6y ago
I visited maybe 4-5 years ago. I had just read about Hsieh, and his business philosophy, and his attempt to revitalize downtown Las Vegas. It was ... odd. My immediate impression was favorable. A very quirky looking area -- a small outdoor mall, with the buildings framing a little courtyard area. Built out of shipping containers, or something that looked like that. But the businesses. Each one was quirky in the extreme. A combination convenience/art supply store. A store selling nothing but socks. A store selling used luxury goods. Maybe one of these could survive in a high traffic area of a conventional mall, but there was nothing to draw anyone. There was a bar that had some odd twist, but I don't remember what the twist was. I didn't see how the area could survive. It wasn't right in the middle of downtown LV, so I don't think they could rely on people visiting there. I'm sure there were people like me who somehow heard of it, and went to visit. But one visit was plenty. There was absolutely nothing to draw me back. And it was pretty deserted.
- blnqr 6y ago
  BLUF: it takes more than one man with a vision to create a tech ecosystem. It takes rich nerds who want to invest locally and stick around. Las Vegas will never have that. I have lived in Las Vegas for 24 years. We moved here to raise a family because it is my wife's home town. (Her father was a scientist and manager with the federal government.) I was and am in tech, working from home except for two years with one of the very few successful tech startups in Las Vegas from 2000-2001. I wanted the tech-oriented revitalization to succeed, but it it hasn't and we are moving to Utah ("Silicon Slopes").
  - Syntaf 6y ago
    Preface: I love Vegas and feel strongly about my experiences at UNLV so forgive my passion. It is my own opinion at the end of the day. As someone who grew up, went to school, and worked in tech in Vegas, I place some of the blame on UNLV and its computer science program. The computer science curriculum taught at UNLV is designed to do nothing more than churn on casino gaming employees; it's so extreme that the only web development course doesn't even count towards your computer science degree. It's absolutely bonkers to me how students are trained from the start to feed right into the golden handcuffs of the casino industry and yet people wonder why Vegas can't get it's tech industry started. There's just simply no local talent pool here as a result. The casino industry is, in my opinion, a solved domain with little innovation room for incoming passionate engineers. I remember applying to a big gaming company here for an internship while at UNLV, and they legitimately couldn't provide a clear answer to "How often do you innovate within your domain, and what are some examples". I feel fortunate that I had already found an interest in topics outside the gaming industry and managed to land a job here for a tech company constantly moving the needle in a challenging domain.
filmgirlcw 6y ago
Massive and complete failure.
mrnobody_67 6y ago
The PR they generated for it was crazy... would love to read a post-mortem.
NaOH 6y ago
I can't speak to how well the project has been doing, but just last week I happened to listen to his 2014 Long Now Foundation talk on this project. I didn't even know who he was before this talk, which was simply next in my podcast feed for this subscription. Maybe the ideas he espoused aren't universal to US areas, but I found plenty worth mulling. https://longnow.org/seminars/02014/apr/22/helping-revitalize-city/ https://longnow.org/seminars/02014/apr/22/helping-revitalize...

Does anyone know how his "The Downtown Project" (aka Vegas revitalization) is going?

by ipsum2 6y ago

Does anyone know how his "The Downtown Project" (aka Vegas revitalization) is going?

reaperducer 6y ago

According to the newspapers, poorly. Very little to show for it.

blnqr 6y ago
That's exactly right. The best bookstore in town shut down. The best coffee shop is still there, a wonderful place, but not much else, sadly. (Disclosure: I am a 24-year local in tech who really wanted it to work.)
- prawn 6y ago
  Did he or others invest as much as was originally implied? I remember it being spoken of as a long-term project. If it was a little shipping container mall, that's a bit of a meagre attempt. You'd need to loss-lead dramatically to attract people across from The Strip to visit.
  - blnqr 6y ago
    Great question, and you hit it squarely: Hsieh and company did not invest the $350 million (!) as originally announced https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/17/15645/zappos-ceo-bets-350-million-on-a-las-vegas-startup-scene/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/17/15645/zappos-ceo...
    - prawn 6y ago
      For just part of $350m, you could comfortably bankroll 20 small businesses to effectively create the dynamic you wanted. Couple that with some drawcards to lure tourists across, free travel, etc. That would've worked.
      - blnqr 6y ago
        You got that right, 20 startups or even 200. And they might have made a great return. Instead, they focused on bars and public art (which I think is cool btw) and made a fundamental real estate mistake by loudly announcing where they were going to buy and how much they had to spend.

bluedevil2k 6y ago

Have you driven the blocks around downtown Vegas lately? It's very seedy, full of pawn shops and payday lending stores, liquor stores and closed stores. Streets are dirty, numerous homeless people. I admire his goal of revitalizing it, but it didn't work.

ryandrake 6y ago
It's too bad, because I really wish Vegas could somehow magically turn into a tech jobs hub. It's got a lot going for it: No state income tax. Cheap housing. Minimal regulation. Cheap, relatively private LLCs. World class restaurants. World class entertainment/shows (even if touristy). Casinos, if you're into it. If NorCal is a heaven for people who like outdoor activities, then Vegas is the heaven for people who like the indoors. The only down side is it's really hot, but going indoors fixes this. If my employer opened an office anywhere near Las Vegas, I'd list my house and call the moving truck the next day.
- modeless 6y ago
  I probably wouldn't mind Vegas except for one extremely important thing. The whole place reeks of cigarettes and I can't stand it. I don't ever want to live in a place where indoor smoking is legal.
  - ckdarby 6y ago
    Agree, Vegas doesn't fit with the tech hipsters and eco friendly Silicon valley types.
  - smabie 6y ago
    Oh man that sounds great, I've always been disappointed that I missed out on the era when smoking in the office was okay.
    - Nas808 6y ago
      I had 2 years of smoking in the building before it was banned and I don't miss my clothes constantly smelling like tobacco smoke.

godzillabrennus 6y ago

Very poorly. VTF folks have also moved on.

obmelvin 6y ago

I visited Detroit in May 2016 and was very taken aback by the revitalization. Granted, it was Memorial Day weekend + Movement Festival [0] so the city was certainly not in it's normal day-to-day look, but Dan Gilbert's money [1] appeared well spent to the eyes of a visitor. I learned about it from talking to my Lyft drivers, who all seemed to think positively about the effort. [0] great techno music in the genre's birthplace [1] Founder of Quicken Loans - recent article with some extra context https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2020/07/09/dan-gilbert-can-afford-quicken-ipo-and-detroit-development-role/5401282002/ https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2020/07/09/dan-gi...

segmondy 6y ago
It looks even much better than 2016 at least earlier this year before the pandemic. Haven't been there since the shutdown.
paxys 6y ago
If you put aside economic problems Detroit just has so much more going for it in terms of history, culture, location, small business, family ties etc. than Las Vegas. That is why dumping money into it has shown immediate returns. When you say Vegas 100% of people are going to (justifiably) think casinos and not much more.
v77 6y ago
Unfortunately Gilbert seems to be at the end of his life. We'll see if Detroit can continue its revitalization without his money.

geophile 6y ago

I visited maybe 4-5 years ago. I had just read about Hsieh, and his business philosophy, and his attempt to revitalize downtown Las Vegas. It was ... odd. My immediate impression was favorable. A very quirky looking area -- a small outdoor mall, with the buildings framing a little courtyard area. Built out of shipping containers, or something that looked like that. But the businesses. Each one was quirky in the extreme. A combination convenience/art supply store. A store selling nothing but socks. A store selling used luxury goods. Maybe one of these could survive in a high traffic area of a conventional mall, but there was nothing to draw anyone. There was a bar that had some odd twist, but I don't remember what the twist was. I didn't see how the area could survive. It wasn't right in the middle of downtown LV, so I don't think they could rely on people visiting there. I'm sure there were people like me who somehow heard of it, and went to visit. But one visit was plenty. There was absolutely nothing to draw me back. And it was pretty deserted.

blnqr 6y ago
BLUF: it takes more than one man with a vision to create a tech ecosystem. It takes rich nerds who want to invest locally and stick around. Las Vegas will never have that. I have lived in Las Vegas for 24 years. We moved here to raise a family because it is my wife's home town. (Her father was a scientist and manager with the federal government.) I was and am in tech, working from home except for two years with one of the very few successful tech startups in Las Vegas from 2000-2001. I wanted the tech-oriented revitalization to succeed, but it it hasn't and we are moving to Utah ("Silicon Slopes").
- Syntaf 6y ago
  Preface: I love Vegas and feel strongly about my experiences at UNLV so forgive my passion. It is my own opinion at the end of the day. As someone who grew up, went to school, and worked in tech in Vegas, I place some of the blame on UNLV and its computer science program. The computer science curriculum taught at UNLV is designed to do nothing more than churn on casino gaming employees; it's so extreme that the only web development course doesn't even count towards your computer science degree. It's absolutely bonkers to me how students are trained from the start to feed right into the golden handcuffs of the casino industry and yet people wonder why Vegas can't get it's tech industry started. There's just simply no local talent pool here as a result. The casino industry is, in my opinion, a solved domain with little innovation room for incoming passionate engineers. I remember applying to a big gaming company here for an internship while at UNLV, and they legitimately couldn't provide a clear answer to "How often do you innovate within your domain, and what are some examples". I feel fortunate that I had already found an interest in topics outside the gaming industry and managed to land a job here for a tech company constantly moving the needle in a challenging domain.

filmgirlcw 6y ago

Massive and complete failure.

mrnobody_67 6y ago

The PR they generated for it was crazy... would love to read a post-mortem.

NaOH 6y ago

I can't speak to how well the project has been doing, but just last week I happened to listen to his 2014 Long Now Foundation talk on this project. I didn't even know who he was before this talk, which was simply next in my podcast feed for this subscription. Maybe the ideas he espoused aren't universal to US areas, but I found plenty worth mulling. https://longnow.org/seminars/02014/apr/22/helping-revitalize-city/ https://longnow.org/seminars/02014/apr/22/helping-revitalize...