Opinion:

Rewind: What could’ve been for Trump in downtown Las Vegas

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Staff file

Donald Trump, left, talks with then-Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman during a topping-off ceremony for the first tower of the Trump International Hotel & Towers on May 25, 2007.

Mon, Nov 2, 2015 (2 a.m.)

In the end, imagination trumped Trump.

If not for Oscar Goodman’s adventurous vision for downtown architecture, what is now Symphony Park might well have been named Trump Park, with a pair of Trump Towers, gleaming like two giant gold bricks.

Instead, of course, the land is home to the Frank Gehry-conceived Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and the classically, art deco-designed Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

But those developments were not the only, or even first, ideas for how to renovate that old rail yard.

“Years ago, I talked with Donald Trump here in Las Vegas,” said Goodman, Las Vegas’ mayor from 1999 to 2011. “We talked about how to take that land with the railroad tracks and make it a positive.”

A positive for Donald Trump, expressly.

“He was talking seriously that he would take over the entire development and build Trump-like towers,” Goodman said of the fall 2002 conversation, which took place long before any serious plans for building on Union Park had been drafted. “It would have been a development in line with what you see from Trump Towers elsewhere.”

Goodman mulled the concept. He talked it over with the Las Vegas city manager at the time, Doug Selby.

“It never did get close to discussing actual numbers, but it was a serious and attractive concept,” Goodman said. “I know that Donald wanted to build there, and (he) talked about how the land could be a positive focal point for Las Vegas. I had thought that, too, but I wanted to build an array of eclectic architecture, and that’s what we did. We wanted to make an architectural statement, so, at the end of the day, I’m glad we passed on that idea.”

Today, Goodman is an ambassador for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and a recurring headliner at Oscar’s Beef Booze & Broads at the Plaza. His next dinner series talk, about the “Damon Runyon-esque families of Las Vegas,” is scheduled for Nov. 12.

As for politics, Goodman has been friendly with a few of the 2016 presidential candidates, including Trump and Hillary Clinton, with whom Goodman has appeared at numerous political functions and interacted with during her multiple visits to Las Vegas.

But Goodman’s endorsement falls to an old friend, Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland. Goodman decided only recently to endorse O’Malley.

The two became close when O’Malley was mayor of Baltimore. Goodman originally said he wasn’t interested in making an endorsement but was swayed by O’Malley’s late overture.

Goodman originally was a Democrat, then turned independent during his tenure as mayor. He has long been an independent personality, which is why he counts such a wide range of elected officials — and resort moguls — as friends.

As for Trump, Goodman coincidentally met up again with the billionaire real estate magnate years later, when both were scheduled for television work. Goodman had just appeared in an episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” as the victim of an assassination attempt. Trump was starring on “Celebrity Apprentice” on NBC.

“Carolyn (Goodman’s wife and the current Las Vegas mayor) and I visited him in his office in New York,” Goodman recalled, chuckling. “Afterward, Carolyn said, ‘I’ve never been in a room with such egos. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ We were just talking over each other, not listening, totally self-involved. It was great.”

Trump gave Goodman a board game that day — Trump: The Game, naturally. Goodman is something of a board-game buff but has yet to open the box.

“I hadn’t even remembered it until talking about it right now,” Goodman said.

The game is packed away in storage at Oscar’s Beef Booze & Broads. Goodman liked the idea of possibly selling the game, unopened, at a charity auction, then playing it with the person or people who made the highest bid.

Asked the premise and rules of the Trump game, Goodman paused.

“You know, Donald told me, but I can’t remember,” Goodman said. “I was too busy talking about myself.”

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