MARK WAITE / PVT The entry into Pahrump along the highway from Las Vegas includes a vintage Beetle advertising the Doghouse on West Basin Avenue and lots of empty space. MARK WAITE / PVT Further along Highway 160, the former aquarium store has become home for graffiti. Advertisement

When British pop singer Petula Clark released her hit song "Downtown" in the 1960s, she obviously wasn't referring to downtown Pahrump.

The Nye County Commission liaison to the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission, Butch Borasky, has suggested the RPC look at a special zoning for the Highway 160 and 372 corridors.

But Nye County Planning Director Jack Lohman told the RPC the existing general commercial zoning for much of those highway frontages is acceptable, but an overlay with special design requirements to spruce it up might not be a bad idea.

"How do we do a walking tour of historic downtown Pahrump?" Pahrump town board liaison Laurayne Murray jokingly asked the RPC.

An old Volkswagen bug that still advertises "Doghouse Auto Repair" is parked on Highway 160, promoting a business on West Basin Avenue. A faded sign on the other side of the street, however, still promotes Whisker's Seafood Restaurant, now long closed.

Graffiti mars a long shut aquarium nearby. A tire store remains closed, with a fence around it.

RPC member Carrick "Bat" Masterson complained that Pahrump's gateway to the world is getting filled in with new auto body shops, used car lots and repair shops.

"This is not the most pleasing thing to see when you come into town," Masterson said. "These are things that are a necessity, but on the gateway to our town, I just don't see it."

Borasky said the county can put conditions on those types of businesses, which can be spruced up to make them attractive.

He cited the Tropical RV dealer on Highway 160, which has recreational vehicles worth $500,000. Another example was the Grease Monkey store, an attractive brick building west of Highway 372.

Lohman, who took over as county planning director last year after serving as a consultant for Las Vegas' prestigious Pogemeyer Group, said the county could implement design standards like the town center zone, which incorporates various design criteria for new developments around the Calvada Eye.

"They'd have the underlying right to develop it, but they'd have to come up with certain criteria -- including design criteria -- which is what you need for your gateway," Lohman said.

Lohman introduced the board to acronyms like MUD, or "mixed use development overlay zone," and SUD, "special use development overlay zone," as well as mini MUDs and big MUDs.

A MUD would have design flexibility which would encourage some creativity, Lohman said.

"We can have a nice sign that says 'Welcome to Pahrump' and they'll say, 'This is a great place.' They won't speed through all the car lots," Lohman said.

The concept of working on a Pahrump gateway isn't entirely new.

Hogle Ireland, the consulting firm that prepared the Pahrump comprehensive zoning map approved last June, included a visitor commercial zone farther west along Highway 372, designed to lure motels and other facilities for travelers into Pahrump along that gateway.

But some planning commissioners thought Highway 160 was already congested with traffic.

Borasky said he is interested in resolving repeated complaints from developers turned down on rezoning requests for shopping centers in residential areas. Lohman said he'd like to limit the proposed changes to the main highways but have "tentacles" that could extend the design overlay concept into neighborhoods.

Borasky complained about a shopping center proposal behind Terrible's Lakeside Casino that was turned down last year, after objections from residents in Jocelyn Estates, a mobile home community on Thousandaire Boulevard.

Another proposed shopping center on South Hafen Ranch Road near the Artesia subdivision was shot down recently.

"Open up the possibility of a shopping center so people don't have to drive all the way into the center of town," Borasky said. "You really need to look at that because right now everybody has to come to the middle of town to buy groceries."

But Masterson said developers who research the possibility of building commercial shopping centers will draw a radius around the proposed site. If there are only one-acre properties or larger, there may not be enough residences in the neighborhood to guarantee a customer base, he said.

Masterson said the old area around Second Street and the Pahrump Community Library was originally considered for the Pahrump downtown area. Preferred Equities Corporation tried to develop Calvada Boulevard as downtown.

Murray said she'd prefer a "park and walk" concept in a centralized downtown area. She recalled how downtowns in many cities deteriorated after suburban shopping centers opened in the 1960s and 1970s. The encouragement of neighborhood strip malls would merely put more traffic on all the major roads, not just Highway 160 and 372, she said.

"We want a central parking area where you can drive to a place, park your car and walk around," Murray said.

Borasky said he wants the state Department of Transportation to address county commissioners about accesses from businesses onto Highway 160.

Lohman said experts speaking at recent housing seminars have said they expect the housing market to improve in 2010. Developer George Harris, who wants to build warehousing off Bell Vista Avenue, said 156,000 jobs will be created when new mega-resorts like City Center, Fontainebleu and The Echelon are completed in Las Vegas.

"They can't afford houses in Las Vegas, they're going to come over here," Lohman said. "Good quality development begets good quality development, and if you don't have the design standards, you're going to get what you can get."