The shaky Shack

History buffs, businessmen clash over whether historic Green Shack restaurant should be torn down

By Andrew Kiraly

Historic Preservation Commission meetings are right up there with silent auctions and funerals as far as excitement goes, but everyone's heart rate kicked up a few notch]es at last week's meeting. Quite matter-of-factly, a local architect proposed tearing down the Green Shack restaurant, one of the city's historic buildings.

"Structurally, the building is not sound," architect Quinn Boesenecker told the commission. "There's wiring that's exposed. It really is kind of a mess. There are cracks in the walls. [The floor] bows [because] there's been water coming through. This is from years of this. There's been no maintenance on it." As he recited the problems, a book of snapshots passed around the table, showing the sorry state of the what was once Las Vegas' oldest restaurant.

Commission chairman Bob Stoldal countered: "Without being sarcastic and facetious, this is the Historic Preservation Commission, as opposed to the building commission or any other commission. Our charge is historic preservation...and you have some idea of [this building's] historic importance to this community and that's why we have this concern."

Other members echoed Stoldal's reservations, grumbling that Boesenecker had apparently already made up his mind about demolishing the storied green building. Boesenecker, principal of Pinnacle Architectural Studio, was hired by Hector Sedano, the owner who wants to build a banquet hall on the site.

Now the vacant restaurant on East Fremont Street--quite literally, a green shack built as early as 1930--is in the middle of a tug-of-war between historic preservation and economic development. Sedano wants to raze the structure and build a wedding and banquet hall that would cater to the Hispanic community. But historic preservation officials feel he's jumping the gun; they'd like to see the building, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994, at least incorporated into the new business.

At next month's meeting, Boesenecker plans to give the commission the results on structural testing that engineers are currently performing on the building, but from what he's seen so far, he doesn't expect a hopeful diagnosis. "I think the building needs to come down," he said after the meeting. "It's completely unsound. It's got exposed wires running throughout it, open breaker boxes, the floor's coming in. It has structural and electrical issues. It's just gotta go."

He also plans to give commissioners an economic picture of what it would cost to rehabilitate the site and incorporate it into a new business--a price tag he expects to be prohibitively high. If Sedano can prove it would be an economic hardship to revamp the Green Shack, it could bolster his case when he ultimately asks the preservation board for permission to demolish the property.

Chalk it up to another instance of Las Vegas shrugging off its history--or maybe not. Privately and off the record, many members of the commission are anguished, wringing their hands over a piece of Las Vegas's past that seemed to fall through the cracks into a state of neglect; they wonder, too, whether the Green Shack building can find new life as a viable business. Others say Sedano knew what he was getting into when he bought the property. Sedano says he appreciates the building's historic value, but he wants his business to succeed as well.

"We're willing to work with them, but not if it puts us in bankruptcy," says Sedano, who is in escrow on the property. "That's what happened to the previous owner. They made it into a historic building hoping they could raise their value, and it didn't happen. Our plan is up in the air until we find what we can do."

Even City Councilman Gary Reese, whose ward includes the Green Shack, is ambivalent.

"I used to go and eat there many years ago; they had great chicken," says Reese. "But [Sedano] showed me pictures of the building [in its current state], and I'd like the commission to really look at it and see if it is really historical. I don't have a heartbeat one way or the other. I think there are certain things worth saving in Las Vegas, but I don't like blight in my area either."

Once upon a time, this blighted building served the food that fueled the construction of Hoover Dam. Begun in 1930 as the Colorado and renamed the Green Shack in 1932, the restaurant kept Las Vegas full through its unlikely Depression-era growth in the years before World War II. Serving fried chicken and mashed potatoes--and bootleg whiskey--the Green Shack drew an improbable cross-section of Las Vegans. Politicians schmoozed; lawyers strategized; dam workers stopped to throw back a few drinks on the way home; families and fraternal groups made it their spot for celebrations. The eatery, owned and operated by one family for nearly its whole life span, was the city's oldest restaurant when owners Jim and Barbara McCormick closed the doors in May 1999.

Next month's historic preservation meeting will see a fuller presentation of Boesenecker's pitch that the Green Shack be torn down. But the biggest threat to the restaurant--economics--may prove its savior. As of press time, Sedano said he was turned down for the $128,000 loan he needed to cinch the sale of the property. The bank wants him to demolish the building first. But Sedano needs to own the property before he can propose demolition. Sedano says, "I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place."