-Looking ahead now to Veterans Day.

On November 11th is when the mayor's Fund for Las Vegas LIFE, an independent nonprofit that supports city initiatives, will kick off a fundraising campaign to relocate the Nevada State Veterans Memorial to the Thunderbird Family Sports Complex in Northwest Las Vegas.

Right now, the memorial, which features 18 larger than life bronze statues honoring American military service from the Revolutionary War through present day, sits in storage.

That's because its former home, the aging Grant Sawyer State Office Building near downtown Las Vegas, is permanently closed.

Once relocated, campaign organizers say the memorial will serve as the centerpiece of a larger gathering space with an amphitheater and an open-air promenade.

Instrumental in the creation of this plan were Francis Allen-Palenske, City of Las Vegas Ward 4 Councilwoman; and Brendan Vargas, Retired U.S.

Air Force Senior Master Sergeant.

They join us now.

Welcome to Nevada Week, and thank you for joining us.

-Thank you.

-So, Brendan, will you start off, because I believe you were the one who first became aware of this issue of there's a memorial and where does it go?

(Brendan Vargas) Right.

And, you know, I can't take credit for getting the petition going.

The petition was started.

I found out about the petition to basically keep the veteran memorial, State Veteran Memorial here in Las Vegas, as opposed to moving it to Boulder City.

No knock against Boulder City.

They've done an outstanding job in hosting both the State Veteran Cemetery and the State Veteran Home, but there are a lot of veterans here in Las Vegas.

We wanted to keep the memorial here in Las Vegas.

I reached out to the councilwoman's office.

There's some personal relationships I had there.

And then when Councilwoman found out about it, she was like, Let's go.

Let's make this happen.

-Why was this an important issue to you?

(Francis Allen-Palenske) Well, the folks in the Northwest, we are uniquely situated about halfway between Creech, halfway between Nellis.

We have a lot of active duty military in the area in the Northwest and a lot of veterans, so it seemed like a very appropriate final place for it.

And you also told me off camera that your father-- -Ah.

Go Army!

Veteran, very proud veteran.

And he's passed now, but I know he'd be very proud that we in the Northwest are the new stewards.

-What do you think of this memorial in particular, Brendan?

When you see it, it stretches all the way from the Revolutionary War to present day.

-It's impressive.

When you look at the numbers, the numbers themselves are quite impressive.

There's about 225,000 people in the state of Nevada that have some type of tie to the military, whether it's the 207,000 veterans that call Nevada home, whether it's the active duty service members we have stationed in the southern and northern parts of the state, whether it's the Reserve units or the Nevada National Guard, which have constantly and consistently supported the nation's military, both at home and abroad, and more importantly, the family members that support their members in uniform.

This memorial is a tribute to their service.

And furthermore, when you look at Nevada, Nevada has a rich military history.

You're talking 161 years of answering the call to duty since statehood in 1864, so this memorial also serves as a tribute to that Battle Born spirit that Nevadans have carried with them wherever they've served and wherever they fought.

-Currently, those bronze statues, 18 of them, are in storage.

When will they be placed, and what will it take to make that happen?

-Go ahead.

-No, please.

-Well, we're hoping by 2026, by fall of 2026, that we're going to have the memorial completely open, and then, obviously, all the statues will be placed.

I mean, it's going to look like it did at the Grant Sawyer Building, but on a much bigger scale.

We have more room through putting an amphitheater there.

So again, this is going to give veterans not just a place to pay their respects, but a place where we can do things on Veterans Day, maybe on Memorial Day.

It's giving us a place where we can hold our celebrations, because we'll have the amphitheater and we'll have other things there that allow us to really, like, make good use of this.

-How much is it going to cost?

-$10 million.

It's got a big price tag.

It does.

-How are you going to get that money?

-We are going to ask the people of Nevada for their generosity.

The governor's commitment to help raise half of that, it's going to happen.

I'm confident.

We've had such a warm reception from the veterans community.

People have just embraced us, embraced the project, and embraced the capital campaign.

-And here's the one thing I'll tell you: This is a very military-friendly state.

I talked about Boulder City earlier on.

And you look at what they do in Boulder City.

If you go down some of the main roads, they have, you know, photos of their service members from Boulder City there.

If you look at what they do in Henderson, what they do in North Las Vegas, and, more importantly, what they do in the city of Las Vegas, this is a very veteran-friendly, a very military-friendly area, very military-friendly state.

So we know there are a lot of supporters out there.

We just need to get them all together to help make this memorial a reality.

-And then last thing, Councilwoman.

When it was at the Grant Sawyer Building, how much access did the public have to it?

-It was relatively limited, because that access, that building was secure.

It was a state building.

They had gates out front, and they would close at five o'clock and wouldn't open until nine.

It was government hours.

So it never hosted a Veteran's Day event.

It never hosted a Memorial Day event.

We're going to change that, and it's going to be the best place on the American West Coast to celebrate those holidays together.

-Ward 4 Councilwoman Francis Allen-Palenske and Brendan Vargas, thank you both so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you, Amber.