Firefighters, Police, Paramedics … Just Minutes Away
Diane Taylor -- Tradeshow Week, 10/31/2008 11:10:00 AM
In the last two weeks, safety and health in the Las Vegas resort corridor took a giant step forward. A new police station was dedicated on Las Vegas Convention Center property at Swenson Street and Sierra Vista Drive; ground was broken for a new fire station at Cambridge and Swenson streets, also on LVCC property; and an announcement was made that MGM/Mirage’s CityCenter also would have a fire station when eventually completed.
“Las Vegas today has the security teams, firemen, paramedics and police to quickly respond to emergencies,” said Scott Allison, Clark County Fire Department public information officer, “but these new facilities will mean we can even be more responsive, both to our resort properties and the surrounding community.”
Both new facilities on the LVCC property are being built as part of the convention center’s enhancement program. Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority President & CEO Rossi Ralenkotter is credited with suggesting that the authority fund the new $17 million police facility and lease it back to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department on a long-term, $1-a-year basis.
Later, Clark County Fire Department officials asked if the LVCVA also would be interested in leasing it land for another new firehouse serving the convention center, the north end of the tourism corridor and the surrounding community. The LVCVA board agreed to another $1-a-year lease. The new fire station, larger than others at 14,000 square feet, is expected to open in 2010.
LVCVA Board Chairman Oscar Goodman, also mayor of the neighboring city of Las Vegas (the center and the Strip south of Sahara are in Paradise Township) said that no other convention center in the country can boast of having both police and fire stations on the premises. At the police station dedication, he also remarked that, since the neighborhood surrounding the LVCC is an area in transition, the presence of a new police station “is a great day for the community.”
In 2007, the Clark County Fire Department received 19,009 calls from the Strip area, 18,135 of them medical-related. “Yes, we have some fires still,” Allison said, “but, fortunately, ever since the MGM fire, our building codes and the fire control procedures within buildings have made our properties as fire-safe as any in the country. Most of our calls are for paramedics.”
