On National Coming Out Day today, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada will host the official grand opening of its new Las Vegas facility, to be followed by a street festival.
The nonprofit group moved into its new home at 953 E. Sahara Ave. in March, and has been using the space for meetings of youth, senior and book groups, as well as an HIV prevention and testing program, while renovating the new center.
"We're still touching up, finishing some painting," executive director Bob Bellis said Wednesday.
The renovations, which included putting up new walls in what Bellis said looked like a big warehouse, will be formally unveiled during the grand opening event scheduled for 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The ceremonial cutting of the ribbon at the center is expected to be done by Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera and former state Sen. Lori Lipman Brown, who cut the ribbon at the opening of the group's first center at 912 E. Sahara in Oct. 1993, Bellis said.
"I understand the center's going to be very helpful and I want to support them," said Herrera, a Democrat running for the 3rd Congressional District seat.
Bellis said the renovations cost $15,000, and the help of many volunteers kept that cost from being higher.
The center is one of the sponsors of a street festival scheduled to begin after the grand opening. The street festival will be held around the intersection of Naples Drive and Paradise Road from 9 p.m. today to 1 a.m. Saturday.
Some bars in that area will have special theme nights to go along with the festival, and there will be vendors in the area, Bellis said. The streets will remain open to traffic, he said.
The grand opening and street festival come less than a month before voters decide the fate of a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would make marriages between a man and a woman the only legally recognized marriages in Nevada.
Bellis said the grand opening and street festival would happen even if Question 2 was not on the horizon.
The events celebrate the finishing of the center and National Coming Out Day, Bellis said.
"It's just to tell people it's OK to be gay" Bellis said.
But Bellis said the ballot question "probably brings the community together."
"It's like a fight for civil rights. A fight against discrimination," he said.
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