Jun 12 2007

The Springs Preserve

by Megan Edwards
Springs PreserveThe new $250 million Springs
Preserve in Las Vegas

The Springs Preserve is open. About a decade in the planning and building, this new attraction occupies the spot where water first made the Vegas Valley attractive to human settlers. Billed as the Las Vegas version of New York’s Central Park, the Springs Preserve was constructed at a cost of $250 million, which paid for:

  1. several beautiful buildings
  2. some very nice desert landscaping
  3. an extraordinary parking lot
  4. endless expensively-produced but very low-level propaganda about water conservation
  5. one heck of a lot of fake rocks

I will confess I feel disloyal to my favorite city when I’m less than laudatory of the Springs Preserve. Everyone I’ve talked to about the place wants to love it, and I do, too. At last, we’re all hoping, we’ll have a place that celebrates the features of our desert home that aren’t connected to slot machines, neon, and skin.

As I drove into the Springs Preserve last Friday, my heart soared. The parking lot is lovely, a beautifully xeriscaped facility shaded by a grid of solar collectors. This is wonderful! I thought. It reminds me of the preserves in Palm Desert, California and Tucson, Arizona. It’s as sophisticated as the Huntington Library. Can Las Vegas actually claim a world-class museum and garden complex? Hurrah!

Friday was the first day of the “grand opening” weekend, and I was happy to find the place mobbed. Staff members were plentiful and helpful, and what was lacking in signage was made up for by friendly personal direction. I made my way to the ticket window and, like dozens of other people around me, bought an annual pass.

After wandering through some canyons of theme-park stone, I entered the ORIGEN (I have no idea why the word is misspelled) Experience, a large, nicely-designed building housing exhibits illustrating Las Vegas history and promulgating the message that water is the only reason anything is here. A well-produced short film narrated by Martin Sheen and summarizing the geological history of the Las Vegas Valley was pleasant to watch but carried the patronizing tone about water conservation that pervades all the exhibits.

The film is called “Miracle in the Mojave,” implying that Las Vegas is somehow different from all the other municipalities that would dry up if they couldn’t suck water from the Colorado River and other such sources. I’ll make this a short rant, but nicknames of that ilk really brown me off. I mean, nobody calls Los Angeles the “Miracle on the Pacific Coast.” When an easily-severed aqueduct hundreds of miles long is the lifeline for a megalopolis of 10 million, I’d call it a much bigger miracle than a nearby river serving a population less than a third that size. I know it all goes back to water rights negotiated when Las Vegas was a one-horse outpost, and I’d love to know more about the fascinating history of how and when those rights were established. Obviously, I expected too much to think I might learn more about it at the Springs Preserve. Okay, end of rant, but if you don’t enjoy narrow, almost moronic propaganda about water conservation in Southern Nevada, you’ll have a lot to ignore inside the ORIGEN Experience. Oh, and don’t tell me it’s great for kids. They deserve better, too.

Unlike the biased water-themed exhibits and games, the art displays in the ORIGEN Experience are lovely reflections of the beauty of the eastern Mojave, and the dioramas illustrating the land auction that started Las Vegas and other historic events are nicely done. The simulated flash flood entertained a roomful of children and adults, and a film made of vintage footage about the building of Hoover Dam gave an entertaining and insightful overview also appealing to both children and adults.

Outside, I checked out the amphitheater, which has a seating area nicely carpeted in synthetic grass and a stage backed by more big ersatz rocks. I didn’t attend the inaugural event Saturday night, but it’s nice to have another outdoor venue in Las Vegas, and I’m sure I’ll be back.

Other buildings at the Springs Preserve house displays about “green” lifestyle choices. Again, I found them low-level. The “green” kitchen, for example, had a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom. My grandmother had one of those at least thirty years ago. In the bathroom, a towel was embroidered with the question, “Did you know…that you’re probably already using a low-flow showerhead?” Um, yes. And I knew when I was ten, too. I was also left with no news after touring an expensive-looking replica of a garbage truck that was touting the miracle of recycling. A display showing the actual reclamation of plastic could have been fascinating, but this was just a video display of a guy spouting the usual vague abstractions.

Sorry if I reverted to rant mode there, but I’m still disappointed that, with a budget equal to those of Strip developers, the designers of the Preserve’s educational displays couldn’t have done as good a job on content as they did on presentation. My unfortunate assumption is that the Water District prefers ignorant but obedient sheep to a population actually aware of how water distribution works in the American west and the genuine effects of recycling and energy-saving architecture.

Having said all that, I still like the Springs Preserve, and I’ll definitely be using my annual pass. The gift shop has a very nice selection of books, toys, art, and souvenirs, and the café (not quite open yet) will be a Wolfgang Puck enterprise. As the gardens mature, they will be even more lovely, and the Nevada State Museum now housed at Lorenzi Park will eventually move to new quarters at the Preserve. I’m looking forward to exploring the hiking trails.

I would love to know what others think. Have you been? Care to share?

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