Joe Schoenmann
Story Archive
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: In tavern-heavy Fremont East District, underage drinking abounds
Tuesday, July 9, 2013 Two cops rode side by side on horseback. Six officers stood in designated spots while about 18 more shifted in and out through the night. Another eight Downtown Rangers kept watch, with videotape.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: In downtown Las Vegas, every day is a balancing act
Friday, July 5, 2013 Life is a balancing act, even in downtown Las Vegas.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Proposed dog park would help downtown go green
Wednesday, July 3, 2013 When a planned private dog park is finished on Fremont Street, it will immediately become one of the largest — if not the largest — patches of green space on one of the city’s oldest byways.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Ferguson Motel being converted into taverns, retail spaces
Wednesday, July 3, 2013 Built more than 60 years ago, the Ferguson Motel is one of the nicer-looking pieces of Vegas memorabilia still upright on Fremont Street. A fence surrounds the shuttered property at 1028 Fremont. When the fence comes down, it won’t be a motel anymore.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: The fine line between problems and progress
Tuesday, July 2, 2013 The Southern Nevada Senior Law Program is a different example of the Downtown Project's efforts.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: On this night, the Huntridge shined again
Monday, July 1, 2013 An impromptu fundraiser for the effort to save the Huntridge Theater was thrown together in three days by Shaun Swanson and others volunteering to their time to an attempt to raise $150,000 over 40 days.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Huntridge Theatre discussion leaves Facebook for face-to-face answers
Wednesday, June 26, 2013 The group behind the building's revival effort took their debate offline last Thursday.
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First FridayJoe Downtown: Fenced in Fremont East won't be part of First Friday in July
Wednesday, June 26, 2013 Police will be on horseback and will more strictly enforce open-container laws, but there will be no fence around Fremont East when the overflow crowds from First Friday descend upon the area July 5.
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FoodJoe Downtown: Owner of Eat hungry for new venture
Tuesday, June 25, 2013 Natalie Harper is one happy downtown restaurant owner these days. Her restaurant, Eat, has done so well, she plans to open another within the next 12 months.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Does your business fit into a cube? Container Park seeks tenants
Monday, June 24, 2013 With development of downtown’s Container Park moving quickly, operators are actively seeking local entrepreneurs interested in leasing space.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Motel long gone, but Ambassador sign being refurbished
Friday, June 21, 2013 Largely unnoticed Thursday during the grand reopening of The Atomic tavern, an icon in the 900 block of Fremont Street, was a man in a cherry picker tinkering with the exposed wiring of a decades-old sign for the Ambassador East motel.The Ambassador no longer exists, having been demolished in 2007. Yet with the sign in as much disrepair and disregard as the empty lots it watches over, it’s easy to drive by and barely see it.
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Joe DowntownDowntown Joe: In quest to revive the Huntridge, confab reveals interesting historical context
Friday, June 21, 2013 Some surprising information came out during a meeting Thursday night of some 150 people gathered in a downtown hall to ask questions about plans to buy and revive the historic Huntridge Theater.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Onetime setting for "The Twilight Zone," The Atomic reopens under new ownership
Thursday, June 20, 2013 Wednesday night’s soft opening of The Atomic introduced the refurbished, iconic tavern to a set host of people, many of whom had never set foot on Fremont Street, let alone visited the bar. It also signaled the coming shift of the “center” of Fremont Street from its current spot near Sixth Street.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Gentrification or positive progress? The great downtown debate
Thursday, June 20, 2013 When a young man with a billion-plus-dollar company comes to town saying he wants to create "community" even as he redevelops a neighborhood infested with crime, you expect what happened to Tony Hsieh.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Fremont East might be fenced off on First Fridays to curb underage drinking
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 The idea is circulating among business owners, Metro and the city.
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FoodJoe Downtown: Push for CPR classes gets boost from Heart Attack Grill staffers
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 Four months after one of its most loyal customers died of a heart attack, the Heart Attack Grill in downtown Las Vegas hosted a media event Tuesday morning to promote cardiopulmonary resuscitation classes and compression-only CPR.
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ArtJoe Downtown: Muralist completes touchup on shuttered Western hotel
Monday, June 17, 2013 For a building that will be near the center of a 15-block festival of life’s beauty, the Western Hotel, something of an eyesore even when it was operational, seems somewhat out of place.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Latest 5K run ideas include squirt guns and striptease
Saturday, June 15, 2013 As a not-so-popular teenager, she took up running. When the other kids saw she was good at it, high school life became easier. Almost two decades later, Tanya Carrier is convinced running is a catalyst for positive change.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Volunteers share load in 'do-acracy' to move along effort to save historic theater
Friday, June 14, 2013 Many times over the past decade or more, taxpayers and individuals have tried to save the Huntridge Theater. Nevada has given more than $1 million to, among other repairs, fix its caved-in roof. Yet for almost a decade, the place has remained in mothballs and fallen further into disrepair. Even the most stalwart historians seemed to abandon hope of saving the building, for one, because it’s so large, and secondly because of the enormous cost to do so. But then, most historians aren’t David Anderson. Or Chris O’Connell, Nicole Sligar, Melissa Clary, Brian “Paco” Alvarez, Kathleen D’Esposito Kahr or a group of others who have thrown themselves into the thankless task of volunteering their time to bring the Huntridge back to life.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Where casino project could have been, the Arts District is growing
Wednesday, June 12, 2013 The Las Vegas Arts District could be on a very different path had a plan to raze dozens of buildings to make way for a Downtown arena-casino complex happened.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Downtown Project has plans for new metered parking lot
Wednesday, June 12, 2013 One lot closes and another one maneuvers to open. A week ago, an Arkansas physician hung no-parking signs and fenced in a gravel lot downtown that had been used for years by workers and others because it offered free parking.
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FoodJoe Downtown: Bunkhouse Saloon closing for 60 days for 'repositioning'
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 Beginning July 1, the Bunkhouse Saloon will close for 60 days, giving time for Downtown Project investors who purchased the property time to refresh the space.
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AnimalsJoe Downtown: More than 200 people expected for this month's llama parade
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 The llama parade is growing. Organizers of the parade, sponsored by Zappos, expect about 230 people – led by a llama – to march from Fremont Street to Cashman Field for Friday night’s game between the Las Vegas 51s and the Colorado Springs Sky Sox.
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First FridayJoe Downtown: Two injured in early Saturday shooting under Fremont Street Experience, police report
Monday, June 10, 2013 As expected on a First Friday night, the hordes descended upon eastern Fremont Street. With an added police presence though, little trouble beyond a few skirmishes occurred in the burgeoning Fremont East Entertainment District, sources said.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Newly installed fencing cuts off free parking in oft-used lot
Monday, June 10, 2013 Parking choices in downtown Las Vegas just got a bit slimmer. The free parking lot at Ogden Avenue and Sixth Street, owned by a doctor from Arkansas, was fenced over the weekend with signs warning vehicles parking there would be towed.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Entrepreneur reboots plans, now will plant seeds for 3-D printing greenhouse
Saturday, June 8, 2013 A new technology has changed Craig Adkins' plans to build a shoe factory in downtown Las Vegas. Advancements in 3-D printing now have him thinking Vegas should catch the wave.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Two weeks and counting to The Atomic's opening
Thursday, June 6, 2013 The long-awaited opening of The Atomic has been set for Thursday, June 20.
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FoodJoe Downtown: Nacho Daddy's second restaurant to open in former Thai Vegas location
Thursday, June 6, 2013 A Mexican/American restaurant in Henderson plans to open another outlet on Fourth Street in downtown Las Vegas.
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CelebritiesJoe Downtown: TV star buoys effort to raise funds to save historic Huntridge
Thursday, June 6, 2013 “Criminal Minds” star and Las Vegas native Matthew Gubler is lending a hand toward efforts to buy, renovate and reopen the historic Huntridge Theater in Downtown Las Vegas.
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First Friday
Joe Downtown: First Friday crowds likely to see more police this month
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 After tavern owners last month expressed fears that the growing popularity of eastern Fremont Street on First Friday was creating a potential powder keg — one called the street scene “ugly” — expect a much larger police presence this week.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Photographer sees parallels between Downtown Las Vegas and LA
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 Ed Fuentes recognized something familiar in the Downtown Las Vegas renaissance.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Prospective employees turn out for Krave Massive's open call
Monday, June 3, 2013 On schedule to open its first phase on June 15, Krave Massive in downtown Las Vegas staged an open call for job applicants Monday afternoon, receiving about 100 applications within the first hour.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Where have all the homeless gone?
Monday, June 3, 2013 What’s odd about the man sitting on Fremont Street near the former mayor’s neon martini glass sculpture on the street’s median isn’t that "Clark" is homeless. East Fremont has long been a hovering ground for many of downtown Las Vegas’ homeless people. The area is changing, however.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Entrepreneur sees future in 3-D printing
Friday, May 31, 2013 After 18 months at Romotive, the smartphone-robot company that began in Las Vegas then moved to Silicon Valley, Jen McCabe immediately began working on plans for Fabbed Labs, a downtown 3-D printing venture.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Downtown Project answers your questions
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 To address the gripes and allay fears, Downtown Project responds.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Bus-driving vagabond helps needy by raising money one signature at a time
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 In all of his travels over the past two years, Donny Squires can honestly say he hasn’t driven his multimarkered, former school bus into any city quite like Las Vegas. His 1963 Blue Bird bus — with the shell of a Volkswagen van welded on top and the faces of Shaggy, Scooby and the other kids from the Mystery Machine painted in the van’s windows — has been parked for about a week in downtown Las Vegas.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Smith Center pedestrian bridge adds another piece to downtown puzzle
Tuesday, May 28, 2013 The Smith Center pedestrian bridge will be christened Wednesday morning by city leaders. Funding for the $4.5 million bridge, which spans the Union Pacific railroad tracks, comes from three sources: $500,000 from the Federal Highway Administration; $3.6 million from the federal Congestion Mitigation Air Quality fund; and $400,000 from the city’s general fund.
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CelebritiesJoe Downtown: Tony Hsieh leads Ashton Kutcher on downtown tour
Thursday, May 23, 2013 Actor Ashton Kutcher ate Thursday afternoon at Eat restaurant and toured some of the many Downtown Project undertakings in the Fremont East Entertainment District.
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FoodJoe Downtown: Restaurant serving 'Fresh American' coming to East Village
Thursday, May 23, 2013 With an opening expected in July or August, work on a new restaurant in an area of the city’s “East Village" is about to begin. Armed with roughly $75,000 in grants from the city Redevelopment Agency, owner Nicholas Akiona will be moving his PublicUs restaurant into space formerly occupied by Philly Steak Express, 1126 Fremont St.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Does Starbucks herald 'arrival' of East Fremont?
Thursday, May 23, 2013 An unthinkable move just a few years ago may become a reality. Though four Starbucks coffee retailers already exist downtown, none exists in the Fremont East Entertainment District. That might soon change.
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NewsJoe Downtown: As the neighborhood becomes more popular, parking becomes an issue
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 And you know it if you've been to First Friday lately.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Challenges daunting but foundation solid for conservation league, departing official says
Tuesday, May 21, 2013 As Scot Rutledge prepares to leave Las Vegas after seven years heading the Nevada Conservation League, he has to take some pride in how far his organization has come since he took the reins. At the same time, he admits the environmental challenges facing his organization and the state are daunting. One of the biggest, he predicts, will be if and when the state starts to deal with climate changes brought on by global warming.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Local Motors CEO visits Las Vegas
Monday, May 20, 2013 One of the newest businesses to gain support from VegasTechFund is Local Motors. Founded five years ago, Local Motors uses crowdsourcing to help in the design of a car, motorcycle or other type of vehicle. John Rogers Jr., president and CEO, last week was in downtown Las Vegas, where VegasTechFund is headquartered. The fund is a tech investment group whose partners include Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.
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Joe Downtown
Joe Downtown: Doughnut shop, tavern, offices may be in mix for former John E. Carson Hotel
Monday, May 20, 2013 Work last week began on the interior demolition of the John E. Carson Hotel, 124 S. Sixth St., purchased a year ago and now part of the realm of the Downtown Project.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: TV series to showcase Las Vegas arts scene?
Thursday, May 16, 2013 Just beyond the doors of the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, a film crew is focused on Charles Ressler. Living in Las Vegas the past two years, Ressler, a New York native, has thrown himself into various roles supporting and bolstering connections between the arts, culture and community in downtown Las Vegas.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Tony Hsieh to get new landlord?
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 Residents of The Ogden high-rise in Downtown Las Vegas are buzzing about what they say is the impending sale of the building to a foreign company. The Ogden is an activity hub for the nouveau downtown tech crowd and home to Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.
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Joe DowntownJoe Downtown: Keeping the door and keeping the peace at the Griffin
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 You don't wanna mess with a bouncer whose pro wrestling finishing move is called Death From Above.
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Art
Joe Downtown: Experience 'Our Las Vegas' artists' works at Emergency Arts exhibit
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 Galleries and art on display in the former examination rooms of downtown Las Vegas’ Emergency Arts building, a former medical clinic, will be featured in two events at the end of this month.
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FoodJoe Downtown: The Grill at Gold Spike reopens to high praise
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 The moderate prices, Muzak-less atmosphere and care taken with my chicken caesar salad – no brown lettuce, freshly grilled chicken, just-right tangy dressing – of The Grill inside Gold Spike just earned my vote as a great place to eat downtown.
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FoodJoe Downtown: Late delivery will keep Uncle Joe's in existing shop
Monday, May 13, 2013 Uncle Joe's Pizza is staying put. I reported recently that the longtime Fremont Street restaurant had closed and would reopen in the Gold Spike, one of Downtown Project's most recent acquisitions.
