FULL FRONTAL

VEGAS MAY BE FAMOUS FOR IMPLODING ITS PAST, BUT THE RELICS THAT SURVIVE? PURE ART.

At night, the facade of the old Holsum Bread Factory [6] still promises the fresh bread it stopped making in 2002, when the factory closed and a developer who appreciated neon design turned it into a mixeduse creative space.

Having survived the boom and bust years— all the growth that welcomed the new and ushered out the old with spectacular implosions or quiet razing—for some beloved buildings, adaptive reuse is the order of the day.

A Downtown JC Penney department store

[5] became the Fremont Medical Center, whose rooms were turned into galleries and studios when Emergency Arts opened in 2010, winning a Mayor’s Urban Design Award. The space-age 1961 La Concha Motel’s lobby [4] was so cherished, a fundraising effort paid for it to be moved to serve as the visitor center for the Neon Museum.

Even former flophouses get their share of love. After purchasing the John E. Carson Hotel

[1] for $2.1 million, Downtown Project investors hired Bunny fish Studio to revamp the Mid-mod motel into a retail and dining spot. In 2012, the former post office and federal courthouse [2] famous for organized crime hearings opened as the Mob Museum, surviving to tell the (sometimes gruesome) history of the city.

But not every creative adaptation depends on architectural integrity: Every third Wednesday this summer, roller disco dances into the once-languishing, now geek-chic Gold Spike

[3]; drone racers have overtaken the shuttered Western Hotel; and developer Arnold Stalk, who first turned an Econo Lodge into veterans’ housing in 2012, is refitting an old Aviation Motel near Nellis AFB for his third location this year.

Got a creative idea? There’s no shortage of buildings in need of saving: the original Art Deco Las Vegas High School, and the Huntridge Theatre, both on the brink of tear-down, await your innovation.