LAS VEGAS — Within 90 days, this city founded on risk-taking is supposed to break ground on one of its biggest cultural gambles to date: the $475-million Smith Center for the Performing Arts.
The ground-breaking is taking place at a challenging time for Las Vegas' biggest cultural institutions, which have been buffeted by the recession. Most notably, the Las Vegas Art Museum closed last month. The museum's closing and cutbacks elsewhere have raised questions about whether a city that in recent years has tried to cultivate a more sophisticated and cosmopolitan image can sustain a high-arts presence and fill the seats at its fancy new cultural center. Previously, Las Vegas attempted to lure out-of-towners away from the slot machines and showgirls by offering brand-name artworks at splashy venues such as the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum at the Venetian Resort, now closed, and casino magnate Steve Wynn's Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art.
By contrast, said Myron Martin, the Smith Center's president, the "vast majority" of patrons at the new performance hall downtown probably won't be tourists, but southern Nevada residents.
"It's important for people like me who live here and raised my family and call Las Vegas home to make a distinction between the kinds of things that have been opened in commercial settings and the kinds of things that we're trying to do to make this a more livable city," he said. "I think we've reached critical mass, that our citizens demand a better quality of life."
The Art Museum had existed for nearly six decades in various incarnations. Libby Lumpkin, who stepped down last December as executive director in the face of drastic staff and budget cutbacks, said "it just seemed like a no-brainer" in the late 1990s that high culture could attract tourists while also serving one of the country's fastest-growing local populations.
"But in retrospect I have been doubting the wisdom of my thinking," said Lumpkin, who previously had worked for Wynn as a curator and editor at the Bellagio Gallery. "I think maybe now Las Vegas is going to be what it's going to be, a cowboy town with a libertarian streak."
Nevada is being hammered not only by dropping tourist visits (down nearly 12% in January from the previous year) but by some of the highest mortgage-foreclosure rates in the country. Casinos are struggling with debt acquired during the era of booming real estate markets. Many hotels have drastically lowered their room rates and are offering more discount cross-promotions with restaurants and casino shows to attract customers.
