Multiple days every week, people line up for a chance to take a glimpse inside the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, home of the History Channel's "Pawn Stars."
The lines were consistent enough on this otherwise nondescript block of Las Vegas that sits in a less trafficked area between the Arts District and Fremont East that a hot dog stand would feed the cueing masses and a kiosk promoting various tours and promotions popped up across the street.
So when the show's Rick Harrison opened Pawn Plaza, a retail and dining complex next door to the shop, it seemed to make sense. But the shops at Pawn Plaza have struggled, like much of the retail and restaurants in the downtown area. Three of the Pawn Plaza establishments Inna Gadda di Pizza, Pawn Donut & Coffee and Smoke's Poutinerie closed in August, after less than a year in operation.
The Downtown Project's Container Park, which Pawn Plaza was modeled after, has seen several retail shops come and go in its three years, but its food options have remained relatively stable. While some restaurants downtown have become stable community presences, such as Le Thai and Eat, others barely registered before closing. The list of casualties in the past two years includes O'Face Donuts, Green Roots Juice Bar, Radio City Pizza and Insert Coins.
While residential development continues to creep forward in the downtown area, it does not appear to be enough to support the wave of bars and restaurants that opened in the area over the past five years.
The bar and arcade Insert Coins drew a lot attention when it first opened on Fremont East in 2011 and added a second location in Minneapolis a year later. But before it closed in 2015, owner Christopher LaPorte warned that the downtown market could not support the new glut of options.
"Market share has definitely been cut to pieces," La Porte told the Las Vegas Sun at the time. "There are not enough people to split among all of us. There's very little residential. Parking isn't as easy here."
Earlier this year the owners of the Beat Coffeehouse, one of the first establishments to open when the Fremont East resurgence began in 2010, announced it was closing. A new chain restaurant is coming, but the Beat was seen as a neighborhood gathering place that added character to the block.
The Neonopolis, which anchors the eastern end of the Fremont Street Experience, was completed in 2002 as an early attempt to revive downtown retail. For the next decade it only served as a poster child for lack of consistency, struggling to hold onto tenants and, for the last few years, sitting half empty.
Now, a new wave of stores and eateries is booked for Neonopolis. The Italian restaurant Fat Papa's is moving into a 9,000-square-foot space in the building, and the Fremont Arcade recently opened, joining existing tenants Banger Brewing, the Toy Shack, Denny's and the Heart Attack Grill.
Still, vacant lots dot the downtown footprint, and the residential base has not grown enough yet to attract a grocery store, which can be an important driver of more residential development.
"Very few people want to be the real pathbreakers. When there's an absence of residential construction, people are going to naturally ask, 'Well, why aren't people moving on this?' It takes some vision," Ed Coulson, director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies, told Vegas Inc. in an interview about the downtown market.
High rises won't be popping up in downtown anytime soon, real estate observers agree, but the area continues to attracts new investors, like a forthcoming movie theater, and is growing year over year.
Perhaps most significantly, a 231-unit, mixed-use building is being developed on Fremont Street by the Wolff Co. in partnership with the Downtown Project.
For the shops and restaurants spinning the roulette wheel of the downtown market, those new residents mean added stability and cannot come fast enough.