Neon Museum breaks ground

The Las Vegas Neon Museum’s future is looking brighter. On May 12, local officials gathered for a ceremonial ground breaking on a permanent home for the city’s electric sign history at Las Vegas Boulevard North and McWilliams Street, adjacent to Cashman Center. The project creates a visitor’s center by marrying the historic 50-year-old La Concha motel lobby with a new 2,200-sq-ft addition designed by Westar Architects.

The building will serve as a gateway to “The Boneyard” – a 3-acre property that houses 150 neon signs in various stages of restoration. The museum currently has four employees housed across the street in the Reed Whipple Cultural Center at 821 North 

Las Vegas Blvd. The museum gives two tours a day with up to 20 people per group; tickets, which run $15 per person, can sell-out three weeks in advance.

The Boneyard has served as the backdrop for a music video by The Killers as well as a CSI television episode. Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue magazines have done photo shoots there; Audi and the Billboard Music Awards have filmed national television spots at The Boneyard. The neon locale generates $30,000 a month in revenue. The museum consequently has raised the $1.5 million needed to press forward with construction plans.

“There is no bank financing. We have raised the money through grants and fundraising,” said Neon Museum Board of Trustees Chairman Bill Marion. “The project is very sensitive to the historic components of the La Concha building.”

The centerpiece of the visitors’ center is the curvy La Concha lobby designed by well known midcentury architect Paul Revere Williams. He also designed Los Angeles International Airport’s Theme Building, plus several celebrity homes, including those of Frank Sinatra, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Lucille Ball. Williams became the first black member of the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows in 1957.

The 1,200-sq-ft clamshell-shaped building was disassembled and trucked from its longtime Strip address at 2955 Las Vegas Blvd. South to the Neon Museum for safekeeping in 2006. The landmark structure has since been reassembled. Museum officials are now refurbishing the 28-ft-tall building to its 1960s appearance, which means duplicating the wraparound check in desk and sign. 

The swooping La Concha structure is constructed from a thin reinforced concrete shell with intervening floor-to-ceiling glass window walls. The undulating shell cantilevers creating pockets of shade that also give the building a dynamic sense of movement. La Concha, in its new incarnation, will serve as a museum gathering space with ticket sales and a gift shop. There will additionally be electronic interpretative exhibits.

Meanwhile, Westar Architects has designed an expansion to east of La Concha that will house four administrative offices, a 60-person capacity multipurpose room and an archive document room. A rollup garage door opens onto a canopied outdoor plaza area that acts as a transitional space leading into The Boneyard. Museum officials envision using the space for fundraising gatherings and special events. The addition has a restrained architectural presence that defers to the curvilinear La Concha.

“The project offers some difficult challenges because La Concha is a historic Las Vegas building. As such, there is concern about how we attached the addition,” said Westar Architects President Patrick Klenk. “We wanted to take the very expressive shell and create a neutral, conservative transition.”

The project will break ground in September. A contractor has yet to be named. Construction is expected to finish in May 2012. The visitors’ center is anticipated to draw 150,000 visitors annually. The museum will have a yearly budget of $500,000, with a combination of professional staff and volunteer docents.