Joe Schoenmann
Story Archive
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Slots making brief reappearance at Gold Spike
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 The Gold Spike reopened this week with a surprising addition: slot machines. Technicians on Tuesday morning wheeled some 10 or more machines out of a truck and onto the floor of the business, which closed April 21, less than a month ago after being purchased from Siegel Group Nevada Inc. by Downtown Project investors. After the sale was completed, Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO and one of the Downtown Project partners, said it would not reopen as a casino.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Ceremony to honor El Cortez for inclusion on National Register
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 One of Downtown Las Vegas’ oldest residents, the El Cortez, will be honored for winning a listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Mayor Carolyn Goodman and Councilman Bob Coffin will headline a ceremony at 4 p.m. Thursday to unveil a commemorative plaque at the hotel/casino. The city's oldest hotel to continuously operate under the same name, the El Cortez became only the second Las Vegas casino on the nation's cultural preservation list in February.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Casino-less Gold Spike opens Monday; old pizza place to get new life
Friday, May 3, 2013 Less than a month after it closed, the Gold Spike will reopen Monday as a bar and restaurant with a large area once devoted to slot machines now home to games such as pool, darts, Golden Tee video golf and shuffleboard.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Life is Beautiful commercial shoot showcases the vibrance of Downtown
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 The festival's video will air in early June.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Gold Spike to reopen within two weeks, without casino
Friday, April 26, 2013 With many of its former employees returning, the Gold Spike casino/hotel will reopen within the next two weeks as a restaurant/bar. As expected, the business will open without a casino. And for the time being, hotel operations are shut down.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Complaints spur effort to change code on building retrofits
Thursday, April 25, 2013 A Las Vegas councilman wants to change a city code that forces developers to spend thousands to retrofit older buildings with energy-saving measures such as window glazing and insulation on cinder-block walls.
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Music
Joe Downtown: Siren brings songs to downtown streets
Thursday, April 25, 2013 Vanessa Andrea has been writing and performing songs since she was 12. Her first was an expression of acceptance for her father, then serving time in the California prison system. “Songs have been my key to surviving,” says Andrea, who at 23 sings with the voice of someone much older. She said she has worked since she was 14 to support her family. “It’s gotten me through life, saved my life, really. Dad in prison, mom addicted to drugs. Writing songs helped me get away and communicate what I felt.”
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: A news tour through the neighborhood’s darker, dirtier past
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 Let's just say the area has seen more than a food truck battle.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Internet series to explore 'downtown from the inside'
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 A local production company today begins filming the antics, thoughts and lives of a handful of downtown residents for an Internet series that shines light on the people behind the area’s transformation from the forsaken to the embraced.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Ecomom to relaunch under ownership of Washington-based business
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 A Spokane, Wash., e-commerce site has bought the inventory and name of ecomom.com, a Las Vegas-based online company dissolved shortly after co-founder Jody Sherman committed suicide in January.
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Food
Joe Downtown: Michael Morton likes that his new La Comida restaurant is 'a little off'
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 The monkey skeleton sign at La Comida, the new Mexican restaurant downtown, isn’t there simply because it’s unique, fun and destined in some distant future to end up in the Neon Museum. A monkey-Mexican connection exists: Mayans, who lived in Mexico, considered monkeys divine creatures. But even Michael Morton, who is opening the restaurant at Sixth and Fremont streets, acknowledges that beyond its historical take, the sign, conceived by his wife, “is a lot of fun.”
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Festival puts out casting call for filming of promotional spot
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 Fremont Street businesses will offer discounted food and drinks Monday night to draw people for the filming of a promotional ad for the upcoming Life Is Beautiful music, food and art festival.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Crowdfunded Vegas Tech House to offer lodging for techies in transition
Thursday, April 18, 2013 Hoping to add to downtown’s tech startup ecosystem, Jon Sterling wants to buy a house downtown for startup founders as they transition into Las Vegas. To do that, the 34-year-old startup founder and former real estate businessman is doing something he’s never seen: He’s giving himself a month to raise $125,000 in small donations, branding opportunities and other means.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Tony Hsieh envisions real progress for Las Vegas. How dare he?
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 Turning casinos into community? The guy must hate Las Vegas.
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Food
Joe Downtown: Iowa students announce vegan food truck as their downtown project
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 After spending spring break here, University of Iowa students in a class that focuses only on downtown Las Vegas have come up with something they believe will enhance the area. The upper-level students who spent spring break here and downtown as part of their classwork are going to introduce a vegan food truck to the downtown landscape.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Vandals waste no time tagging Container Park tower
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 It comes as little surprise that about a day after a 40-foot observation tower was erected on the site of the Downtown Container Park at Seventh and Fremont streets, graffiti was found on it.
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Cirque du Soleil
Joe Downtown: Cirque costume designers take advantage of Stitch Factory's offerings
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 Cirque du Soleil has a virtual lock on the Las Vegas Strip performance industry with seven – and soon to be eight – shows, including the upcoming Michael Jackson tribute “One.” But now you can even find the entertainment giant’s employees working downtown. They’re not performing. They’re sewing.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Additional pieces added to Downtown Container Park
Tuesday, April 16, 2013 A few more pieces have been added to the Downtown Container Park, a project developers hope to have in place this fall. Situated at Seventh and Fremont streets, the Container Park – which has been redesigned to include more prefabricated cubes than shipping containers – will take up a half block and include enough spaces to accommodate 20 to 30 businesses. Monday afternoon, a 40-foot tower containing a spiral staircase was hoisted into place with a massive crane. The tower walls will be adorned with large-lettered signage, with a light feature affixed to the peak; inside will be a private observation room.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Former Gold Spike employees seek jobs with other casinos, Downtown Project
Tuesday, April 16, 2013 Nearly 50 former employees of the Gold Spike casino/hotel seeking jobs after the property's sale and closure showed for interviews with five different businesses or agencies Tuesday morning.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Learned lessons being applied in relocation of John E Carson Hotel residents
Friday, April 12, 2013 Some 43 residents of the John E Carson Hotel, purchased by Downtown Project investors to be transformed into a multistore retail, food and beverage facility, will get free rent for a month and be moved into a different hotel at the investors’ expense.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Downtown Project adds Gold Spike to its property holdings; casino to close Sunday
Thursday, April 11, 2013 The Gold Spike hotel/casino will reopen again but its casino days are over. It might not even be named the Gold Spike. The Siegel Group Nevada announced Thursday the sale of the property to Downtown Project investors, who already held the note to the property. Terms were not disclosed.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Cabbie picks on wrong fare to refuse ride
Thursday, April 11, 2013 Complaints about cab drivers refusing to give people rides for relatively short distances are fairly commonplace downtown. Just try getting a cabbie to drive you from Fremont Street at Las Vegas Boulevard to Soho Lofts at Charleston and Las Vegas boulevards.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: For one startup, staying in Vegas might be more trouble than it’s worth
Wednesday, April 10, 2013 Screwy immigration regulations are weighing down British app developer Bluefields.
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Music
Joe Downtown: Does phoenix mural signal rebirth for landmark Huntridge Theater?
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 A colorful phoenix spray-painted onto the back wall of the defunct and decaying Huntridge Theater has led to a welcomed slowing of northbound traffic on Maryland Parkway the past few days.
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Joe Downtown
Downtown Project snapping up apartment building, other parcels
Monday, April 8, 2013 A group purchasing property all over downtown is close to finalizing a deal for the 360-unit Mayan Plaza apartment building on Alta Drive, next to the new Metro Police headquarters.
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Museums
Joe Downtown: Neon Museum extending weekend hours
Friday, April 5, 2013 Downtown Las Vegas’ popular neon sign graveyard, The Neon Museum, is extending weekend hours to meet demand. Tours will now be offered Sundays, every half hour, beginning at 10 a.m.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Skeleton for dome arrives at Container Park construction site
Thursday, April 4, 2013 The skeleton of the geodesic dome that will be able to project an array of images on its interior walls with state-of-the-art digital equipment is finally going up in the Downtown Container Park at Seventh and Fremont streets.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Downtown Project converting trailers into 'Skillshare' classrooms
Wednesday, April 3, 2013 A once-empty lot at Eighth and Fremont streets, adjacent to the coming downtown Container Park, is now full of more than a dozen large trailers. Not trailer homes though a rumor, however unlikely, was floating a month ago that the Downtown Project was looking to trailers as a way to fill a residential need as it prepares to move some 1,300 Zappos employees downtown this fall.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: With development creeping east, the Bunkhouse no longer feels far away
Wednesday, April 3, 2013 The Bunkhouse was purchased by the Downtown Project in January.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Life is Beautiful festival announces dates, schedules lead-in events
Wednesday, April 3, 2013 The two-day downtown Life Is Beautiful festival – a celebration of music and food – is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 26 and 27, and organizers have begun to put together some mini-events leading up to the fall festival on Fremont Street.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Teslas on order for public use in rideshare program
Tuesday, April 2, 2013 A futuristic mural in the mayor’s office of old City Hall used to depict a "Jetsons"-esque city with flying cars zipping down Fremont Street.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Cambridge grad students to offer expertise to the Plaza
Monday, April 1, 2013 First came Venture for America’s college graduates, several of whom were hired by Downtown Project for two-year stints to study, learn and help startup businesses. Then a few weeks ago, 14 students from the University of Iowa in a class devoted to "reimagining" downtown Las Vegas spent their spring break here and will return this summer. Now students from Cambridge University – yes, that Cambridge, the second-oldest university in the English speaking world – are getting in on the act.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Salon owners see uptick in business as more workers head downtown
Monday, April 1, 2013 A downtown salon’s desire to hire eight stylists by the end of the year is being fueled by a resurging economy and the influx of workers to the area. Staci Linklater and James Reza, owners of Globe Salon, 900 Las Vegas Blvd. South, will stage auditions for new stylists from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, with the goal of hiring on new people to meet the salon's growing demand, they said.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Parade of characters in Las Vegas has new venue – East Fremont Street
Monday, April 1, 2013 One more sign that the Fremont East Entertainment District is starting to come of age: Those superhero and other characters that populate the Fremont Street Experience were seen last weekend near Fremont and Sixth streets.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Former YouTube executive to speak about 'community'
Thursday, March 28, 2013 “Community” is word coming into vogue in downtown Las Vegas due to efforts of Downtown Project to create and strengthen community in an area where virtually none previously existed, along the eastern stretches of East Fremont Street. Late Friday afternoon, a man who worked nine years at Google and its subsidiary, YouTube, will talk about how the world is not only smaller because of Internet video sharing, it’s creating more awareness and forcing a redefinition of “community.”
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: If you're drinking downtown, be sure you bought it there
Thursday, March 28, 2013 It isn’t illegal to have open containers downtown, notes Officer Charles Stuart, who will talk about the issue to local media Friday. But it is illegal, he said, if the alcohol is not purchased from a downtown establishment.
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Joe Downtown
Downtown Project pieces together its $93 million llama
Thursday, March 28, 2013 The purchase of downtown — well, a good bunch of it, anyway — is almost complete. Downtown Project insiders call the mass of land stretching over several blocks from Las Vegas Boulevard to Maryland Parkway “the llama,” because that’s what it sort of resembles from space.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Longtime Metro officer to lead Downtown Rangers
Wednesday, March 27, 2013 A Metro Police sergeant who has become a familiar face downtown will retire Monday then go to work overseeing the new Downtown Rangers program.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Is Downtown too insular for its own good?
Wednesday, March 27, 2013 It was stunning to watch a local creative look over both shoulders before talking to me about what’s going on Downtown. “I don’t think they really want to hear anything negative,” he said, sitting at the bar of the Beat coffeehouse.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Irish musician, fourth-grade artist team up for fundraiser
Wednesday, March 27, 2013 A local fourth-grade artist and an Irish folk music legend are teaming up Easter Sunday for an art show and concert to benefit Casa de Luz, which serves the poor in downtown’s Naked City.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Iowa students leave Las Vegas to work on task of making 'an impact, an impression' on downtown
Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Fourteen University of Iowa students involved in a class called “Reimagining Downtown” are finished with their spring break in Las Vegas. Now they're focused exclusively on creating something that benefits downtown Las Vegas.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Danger is who, not what, she is
Tuesday, March 26, 2013 The seafoam-rimmed sunglasses and matching bow in her blond hair aren’t right. If you have to put a finger on the problem, it’s her name. “Krissee DANGER.” The name doesn’t fit the glasses and ribbon. It doesn’t fit the person. There appears nothing dangerous about her. Don’t believe me: Take the word of the people she meets almost daily giving tours for the Downtown Project, where she takes visitors even into the private sanctum of Tony Hsieh’s condo on the 23rd floor of the Ogden.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Web-savvy consultants have work cut out for them with city's site
Sunday, March 24, 2013 By pushing services onto the Internet that used to require a visit to City Hall, Las Vegas – like other cities around the country – is trying to make life easier through technology. But also like other cities, Las Vegas’ website is so hard to figure out, many of the services city residents might want to use – downloading documents or filling out forms online, for example – either don’t exist, are hard to use or nearly impossible to find.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Bartending contest touts bringing 'the Strip to Downtown'
Friday, March 22, 2013 A bartending contest in the Fremont East Entertainment District? Can a roaring volcano, German tiger tamers and dancing waters at the El Cortez be far behind?
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Legislative committee to take up bill seen as vital to downtown
Thursday, March 21, 2013 Fear is growing among downtown supporters that if a bill to extend the life of Las Vegas’ redevelopment agency fails in the Legislature, downtown’s ongoing revival could face a serious setback.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Mint 400 events stirring traffic changes downtown
Thursday, March 21, 2013 With the annual Mint 400 off-road race back this weekend, several streets already have been closed down around Fremont Street for race-related events.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Is Romotive's departure a sign of the future?
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 Romotive took a $500,000 investment from Tony Hsieh, built itself up, and is leaving town.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Fremont District, city ready to welcome off-road race enthusiasts
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 To accommodate Mint 400 race attendees and partiers downtown, the city wants people to know there will be plenty of parking available over the weekend.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Rangers stand ready to provide assistance
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 Armed with tiny body cameras and dispensing advice for free, members of a street-level concierge service known as Downtown Rangers are the newest additions to the Fremont East Entertainment District.
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Business
Joe Downtown: Statewide business startup contest finalists named
Friday, March 15, 2013 Judges have selected 12 business startup finalists to vie for a $100,000 prize offered by the state’s economic development division and private donors. Project Vesto announced the finalists Thursday.