Former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones said the floundering Neonopolis suffers from two separate problems: tourists stopping at the edge of the Fremont Street Experience covering and a lack of a permanent population downtown.
"In retrospect, we should have brought the Fremont Street Experience all the way to Las Vegas Boulevard," said Jones, currently Harrah's Entertainment's senior vice president of government relations. "I absolutely believe people perceive safety."
On population, "There is going to come a time when a demand for housing is realized in the downtown corridor and that's when all of this will become vibrant."
Jones added the much-criticized design "has nothing to do" with the mall's problems. She said that the developer made the decision to go ahead and build, not the city, but she defends it as "still the right decision ... just ahead of its time."
Although Neonopolis opened in 2002, Jones had championed the downtown entertainment and retail center in the final years of her term, which ended in 1999, as part of a larger downtown revitalization.
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