If he turns into Hank Scorpio, sign me up! In all seriousness, though, I think this could turn out like the SLU neighborhood here in Seattle. Paul Allen bought all the land and turned it into a major biotech hub, and now Amazon, tech stars, and others are taking it over.

Unless things have dramatically changed in the last 6 months since I left Seattle, SLU is still kind of a failure.

The big vanity streetcar Paul Allen wanted got built, and is still as useless as ever. He wanted "mass transit" in his neighborhood, but it's neither frequent enough, nor fast enough, to really make a difference. SLU remains as isolated from the rest of Seattle as ever, except now a lot of people are forced to make the commute (try asking a east side resident how they like their commute).

Some condos got built, but the area is still largely undeveloped, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of residential development going on. Commercial tenants are moving in, but the residents aren't following.

Ditto, residential-support businesses (restaurants, coffee shops, corner stores, etc) simply haven't arrived at all. The neighborhood still shuts down after work, barring a select number of expensive bistros. I've heard through the grapevine that Vulcan is being extremely selective about their retail tenants - and anything that's not archetypically urban-chic (and expensive) need not apply.

It's like Belltown, except less organic, more artificially high-end, without any trace of nightlife, and way more boring. This is fine if Paul Allen imagined SLU as an office-park neighborhood, but that's not Vulcan's vision. Overall, I'd consider SLU to be the most sterile and soulless neighborhood on that side of the lake.

Yes, you're largely correct in that description. Hopefully Hsieh does a better job in Vegas.