Tony Hsieh, the chief executive officer of Zappos, has big plans for Las Vegas. Hsieh is intending to move his company to downtown Las Vegas from suburban Henderson, NV, next fall and is investing $350 million of his own money in order to help the city to become an even cooler place to live, play and work.
Earlier in September, 200 employees of Zappos made their relocation into temporary offices situated just a couple of blocks away from the former City Hall building that is set to be the company’s brand new corporate headquarters, and which is currently in the middle of undergoing a renovation costing $40 million. “Amazon knew we were running out of space, and we had to do something,” says Hsieh. “I think Jeff Bezos thinks this is a really interesting experiment.”
As is the case in Detroit, and a number of other cities too, Las Vegas has been struggling to find a future for its downtown area. Hsieh is intending to revitalize the district into a prime location for things such as the arts, technology startup companies and co-working space.
“This isn’t so different from what we built at Zappos,” Hsieh notes. “We’re just scaling it.” Hsieh has already poured up to $200 million into the Downtown project in order to purchase buildings and land, with another $50 million set to help lure startups to the area.
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