Las Vegas, NV - Mayor Jan Laverty Jones

Las Vegas Business Center

The Las Vegas Business Center, a community-based project that assists start-up businesses, is located on a 1.5-acre site in West Las Vegas. With its high poverty rate and extensive infrastructure needs, the West Las Vegas community has long been the focus of major community redevelopment and revitalization efforts spearheaded by the City; this City-sponsored business center, officials believed, would contribute to the area's revitalization by bringing in both new businesses and new consumers.

The Center, a 17,100-square-foot facility, offers individuals the opportunity to establish a business with relatively low start-up costs; it uses City and State aid to provide needed support systems, and offers low office rents and other services. Jobs are created as these businesses expand and additional employees are needed.

The Las Vegas Business Center provides start-up businesses with the tools necessary for survival through three incubators which:

• •provide reduced rents based on a sliding scale, office furniture, personal computers, phone lines and reception services, a shared conference room and office equipment, storage, and business training and counseling services; and

• •permit small businesses to use the Business Center facilities without having to rent office space. Tenants share a common office with other industrial tenants and rent industrial storage space for their equipment and materials.

The Incubator Without Walls allows small businesses to use their own homes as their offices while, at the same time, having the use of the Center facilities. One of the incubators is fully occupied and has a waiting list; the other two incubators are filling rapidly and are expected to reach full capacity this year.

The Center cost an estimated $2.6 million - approximately $1.5 million from CDBG, $500,000 from an Economic Development Administration grant, $300,000 from a Wells Fargo Bank grant, and $400,000 in HUD funds through the Southern Nevada Enterprise Community. The CDBG funds were used to help build the facility and currently are being used to operate the Center and its programs.

The Business Center has been well received in the Las Vegas community and enjoys frequent media attention. Several of the Center's tenants have been asked to exhibit at business conventions, speak at business seminars and provide workshops for other local residents and business owners. More importantly, the tenants have reported substantial business growth. Because of its success, a second Business Center is being planned for East Las Vegas.

Contact: Sharon Segerblom, Director, Neighborhood Services Department, (702) 229-2330

The United States Conference of Mayors

J. Thomas Cochran, Executive Director
1620 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006
Telephone (202) 293-7330, FAX (202) 293-2352

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