is for sale by Hsieh’s family,<\/a> presumably to anyone with any kind of vision whatsoever.\u00a0This includes Container Park; Fergusons; the historic Atomic Liquors building; and the former Las Vegas City Hall that Hsieh transformed into Zappos\u2019 headquarters.<\/p>\n\u201cOne of the troubling things I saw was just how out of touch DTP and Zappos employees were with the general downtown ecosystem,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cThey put people in charge of building downtown relationships who just didn\u2019t know anything about downtown, let alone the politics of the neighborhood. They would go on saying, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re gonna bring art to downtown, we\u2019re gonna bring culture to downtown.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of that already existed<\/em> downtown,\u201d Alvarez said, citing the Downtown Cocktail Lounge, Griffin, Commonwealth, Insert Coins, Vanguard, and Beauty Bar lounges, and Henri & Odette art gallery.<\/p>\nAt first, DTP\u2019s investment stoked excitement and a media frenzy. It brought residents in from the Vegas suburbs who hadn\u2019t been downtown in decades, to share tables at Natalie Young\u2019s Eat and the late Kerry Simon\u2019s Carson Kitchen with Zappos\u2019 young tech crowd.<\/p>\n
But millions of DTP\u2019s money — such as the $11 million spent on a car-sharing program in an area without ample parking or enough residents to support it — was indefensibly thrown away.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cTony put the wrong people in place,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cAnybody who had an idea and put it on a Post-It note got funding. I tried to whisper quietly from the inside. But man, you have to be really careful criticizing anybody in a culture like that, because then they will accuse you of not being part of the culture and not a good culture fit.\u201d<\/p>\nThis 2013 map shows the property Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project purchased in the Fremont East district. (Image: DTP Companies)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nDot-Community Bubble<\/b><\/h2>\n According to Alvarez, what downtown has needed for decades is more housing for low- and medium-income families, and transitional housing for the unhoused. Instead, DTP bought buildings, sometimes for about twice their value, and transformed them into expensive studio apartments.<\/p>\n
The best thing that could have happened to downtown is to let things continue to happen organically,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cDon’t force it. We need more people down here. We need a mix of incomes. That attracts smaller businesses that can service those people that live in these neighborhoods. Things have to happen slowly.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As an example of how revitalization is supposed to work, Alvarez — who previously served on the City of Las Vegas Arts Commission — cited downtown\u2019s art district, a formerly downtrodden neighborhood on the rise for the last 20 years, which he said is like \u201cthe race between the turtle and the hare and we all know who won that race.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Beat Coffeehouse & Records — opened in 2009 by Jennifer and Michael Cornthwaite at 520 E. Fremont St. — was a beacon for downtown writers, musicians, and other artists until being replaced by a California coffee chain in 2016. (Image: Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn speeding up what should be the organic process of city planning, Silicon Valley style, DTP blew up a bubble that could self-sustain only as long as more capital kept pouring into it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cCharging $13 for a fruit smoothie in a neighborhood where the average income is $32,000 a year was tone-deaf,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cInstead of investing in businesses that were already down here, like the little flower shops on East Charleston or some of the art galleries or bars in the arts district, they started building their own stuff. But it wasn\u2019t the right stuff for the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gritty but beloved punk clubs and watering holes were replaced with artisanal doughnuts, craft beer, and Bikram yoga. The Beat Coffeehouse & Records — opened in 2009 by Jennifer and Michael Cornthwaite — was downtown\u2019s brightest pre-Hsieh light. But it was extinguished by market forces created by DTP in 2016 and replaced by exactly the type of California-based chain Hsieh despised.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter we lost The Beat, which was the heart and soul of Fremont Street, Fremont Street never recovered,\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n
Tony Has Left the Buildings<\/b><\/h2>\n Hsieh became less involved in DTP in 2014, the year it laid off a third of its 100-member staff. Six years later, he was forced out of Zappos by Amazon and decided to relocate to Park City, Utah, with a sycophantic core of followers. Here, Hsieh repeated the pattern of gobbling up real estate for more than market value.<\/p>\n
According to friends and associates, Hsieh exhibited increasingly erratic behavior<\/a> fueled by habitual huffing from nitrous oxide canisters. On Nov. 27, 2020, he died, emaciated, of smoke inhalation from a fire he started in a shed attached to an ex-girlfriend\u2019s house in Connecticut. He was 46.<\/p>\nHow many people in downtown and all around used Tony for his millions on ill-conceived business projects and overpriced land purchases?\u201d Alvarez asked. \u201cIt was sickening, absolutely sickening.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Though remembering Tony Hsieh as the face of downtown\u2019s revival makes for a good story, it’s not exactly what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can thank Tony for helping to invigorate a lot more of Fremont Street,\u201d Alvarez said, \u201cbut he wasn\u2019t the savior of downtown. Downtown would have come back up on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Look for \u201cVegas Myths Busted\u201d every Monday — its new day<\/em> — on <\/strong>Casino.org.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Click here<\/a>\u00a0to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email\u00a0 corey@casino.org<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legacy of Tony Hsieh includes his single-handed transformation of downtown Las Vegas from a depressed neighborhood into the safe, walkable, and thriving cultural hub it hadn’t been since the 1950s. But downtown, two miles north of the Strip, was already on the upswing long before the late former Zappos CEO arrived on the scene. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":272131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81896,81886,88494,82353,1,84511],"tags":[86090,86084,86085,86089,86091,86083,23,86087,86086,86088,83433,83434],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Tony Hsieh Saved Downtown Las Vegas - Casino.org<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n