Once-thriving shopping center ripe for a face lift Store owners and county officials face difficult decisions over Commercial Center's fate. Today, the county-owned parking lot is never full in daylight hours. On a recent afternoon visit, an emaciated and dazed woman was seen stumbling around the lot, heading from one parked car to another. Many storefronts are empty, decorated with dusty signs saying they're available for lease.
Some shops are open, but empty of customers.
But at night, the center at 953 E. Sahara Ave. has popular restaurants, mainly Asian, some attracting busloads of Asian tourists. Two anchor stores for the center no longer exist except as memories. But her idea failed to win much support at a May commission meeting. Commissioner Lorraine Hunt, a Republican, is a forceful opponent of creating an agency for redevelopment because she favors letting the free-market system work. Advocates of redevelopment agencies say their agencies are useful in providing assistance to small businesses and economic diversification by using a variety of tools and programs to finance business start-ups and improve landscaping and exteriors.