LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Another unique location is coming to Symphony Park.
On Wednesday, the Las Vegas City Council approved plans to give 0.59 acres of land to the Las Vegas Museum of Art, which will use the land for a sculpture garden.
"With such a wonderful neighbor as the Las Vegas Museum of Art, we couldn't even find a better partner to do that more skilfully and better than we could ever do that," said Dina Babsky, the Acting Director of Economic Development for the City of Las Vegas. "We are proposing the gift of the 0.59 acres to the museum so they would develop, operate, program, and activate the sculpture park to not only serve the visitors of the museum but the whole area."
The parcel will also include a landing for a pedestrian bridge that would go over the railroad tracks.
"That's a development that is happening next fiscal year," Babsky explained.
Museum officials say they're already brainstorming and looking at what other communities are doing.
"It's our goal to enhance the already vibrant Symphony Park with art and a very welcoming space," said Heather Harmon, the Executive Director of the Las Vegas Museum of Art. "We can look forward to a wide range of programming there, highlighting art and community and we can also complement existing activities like the recent arts festival."
In September, the City of Las Vegas approved land for the museum, which would be located at 302 S. City Parkway. The sculpture garden site is located right next to that parcel.
The museum would be about 90,000 square feet and include three exhibition spaces, ranging between 7,000 square feet to 21,000 square feet each, a gift shop, theater, café, exhibition staging, and an outdoor public area.
If they stay on track with the current timeline, construction would begin in March 2027 with the goal of completing and opening the Las Vegas Museum of Art by the end of 2028.
"We're really starting to see from your foundation, from your focus and your guidance and your leadership, to really see the city growing beyond what was a tourism, destination city and people not really seeing or understand what the culture or the community is within Las Vegas," said Patrick Brennan, the Principal of Red Ridge Development, which is working on the project. "Symphony Park is now that beaming light coming out of Las Vegas."
And for art museum officials, it's time to open a new cultural destination.
"This is a place to commune and a place to be together and a place to celebrate art, the thing that cultivates an individual perspective and experience, a place where there is no right way, bad way, young way, old way, black way, white way," said Punam Mathur, Executive Director of the Elaine P. Wynn & Family Foundation. "I think we're going to cut the ribbon at the end of 2028 at a time when our community's going to need it and appreciate it more than it ever could before."
