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Fashion Show Expansion to Open

LAS VEGAS --It has been called all things to all shoppers and it's almost ready for business.

Ending more than a decade of planning and anticipation, the first phase of the Fashion Show mall's $1 billion expansion is scheduled to open at 10 a.m. today. Friday at 10 a.m.

The project adds nearly 900,000 square feet of retail space to the 22-year-old mall and also should kick off a new era in retailing that further enhances the city's status as one of the world's top shopping destinations, said Rita Brandin, vice president and development director for the mall's owner, Columbia, Md.-based Rouse Co.

"Las Vegas has become more than just gambling," Brandin said. "Shopping has become a key to Las Vegas, where there is now an expectation that you'll get a little bit of everything."

Even the city's most prominent casino developer is excited about the mall's new look.

"This is going to be the most unique shopping center in the world," said Steve Wynn, whose $1.85 billion Le Reve resort will be built across the street from the mall. "The Rouse Company has taken that corner (Spring Mountain Road and Las Vegas Boulevard) to another level."

Like Wynn, Brandin and her co-workers at Rouse believe the new Fashion Show offers everything and then some, headed by two new anchor tenants and space for up to 90 additional specialty stores.

Among the most eagerly awaited developments is the addition of Nordstrom, a Seattle-based retailer that is opening its first location in Nevada. In addition, Bloomingdale's, a division of Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores, will introduce its first-ever Bloomingdale's Home, a 100,000-square-foot concept store offering housewares, furniture, and other interior design products and services.

"Our store and Nordstrom coming, (both) brand new to the market, has to say to the local customer, 'This is something different,' " said Michael Gould, chairman and chief executive officer of Bloomingdale's. "That's a positive for everyone."

In addition, existing Fashion Show anchors Neiman Marcus, Macy's and Robinsons-May each significantly have expanded their current sites, while longtime tenants Dillard's and Saks Fifth Avenue are moving into larger stores in other areas of the mall. Overall, the expansion will bring about 6,500 new jobs to the community.

The new west wing also features an 800-foot-long Great Hall that will be used for entertainment events. Its first fashion show, featuring clothing by designer Alexander McQueen, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. todayFriday at 7:30 p.m. The show is free and open to the public.

Small stores in the mall's west wing include Abercrombie & Fitch, Ann Taylor Loft, Apple Computer, Claire's Boutique, Cinnamon Girl, Guess, Island Pearl, Lucky Brand and Stefanel, to name just a few.

Such shops and amenities are rare for a city of Las Vegas' size, but Brandin believes the nearly 36 million tourists who visit Las Vegas each year will help make Fashion Show a "super-regional shopping center" attracting shoppers from around the world, much like the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., and on a regional level, like the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif.

"No other city of 1.4 million residents would have this collection of department stores," Brandin said. "As residents, we benefit from the fact that we have such incredible sales driven from the tourist market."

Patrice Duker, spokeswoman for the International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York-based trade organization, also believes Las Vegas' tourism industry will make Fashion Show a top shopping destination in the United States.

"It can only help (Las Vegas) with its tourism marketing," Duker said. "The city has a ton of retail attractions as it is, and this is only going to make it a more popular destination for shoppers."

When Lord & Taylor moves into a 138,000-square-foot space next fall that formerly housed Dillard's, Fashion Show will become the only retail center in the United States with eight anchor tenants under one roof. Brandin said such growth was needed to stay competitive with newer Strip retail centers such as the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace and The Venetian's Grand Canal Shoppes.

Brandin said the mall expects its sales per square foot average to increase to $1,000 following the expansion, up from its current $600 total. Overall, the mall expects its annual sales to top $1 billion by 2006.

The Forum Shops, owned by Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group, takes in an estimated $1,300 in sales per square foot, well above last year's national average of $336 per square foot, Duker said. The Grand Canal Shoppes should top the $1,000 mark in sales per square foot by the close of this year.

"There is an immense amount of sales that can occur in this market, but you can't have enough merchandise on display to hit those higher sales numbers in a 63,000-square-foot (anchor) store," Brandin said in reference to Saks Fifth Avenue's outgoing store, which will be gutted and turned into several smaller stores once the retailer moves to its new 160,000-square-foot site at Fashion Show.

"Some stores used to remove whole departments because there wasn't enough room to drive the sales, but that's not the case any longer."

When developer Ernest W. Hahn, Inc. (a forerunner to TrizecHahn Corp., and later, Trizec Properties) and the Summa Corp. (now the Howard Hughes Corp.) opened Fashion Show in February 1981, it included 822,700 square feet of retail space divided among five anchor tenants and 130 speciality stores.

Although some area residents originally scoffed at the idea of a high-end shopping mall in a community with less than 480,000 residents, Terri Monsour, vice president/general manager of the local Neiman Marcus store, said Las Vegas needed a luxury retail presence in the early 1980s.

"I was here even before the beginning and, at that point in time, there were no stores in Las Vegas where people could shop for fashion," said Monsour, who moved to Las Vegas in 1979 before starting her career with Neiman Marcus as a public relations staffer in 1981. "Anyone who really did want a fashion piece had to go to L.A., New York or elsewhere."

As the city grew in both population and visitor traffic, Monsour also said the original Fashion Show became too small to meet the market's increased sales potential.

"We could no longer bring in any more assortments by vendor or by quantity until we expanded," said Monsour, whose store grew from 102,000 square feet to 167,500 square feet in the mall's recent renovation.

Although nearly 46,000 square feet of restaurant space was added to the mall in the early 1990s, Brandin said Fashion Show's previous owners long had wanted to more significantly expand the project. Those hopes were stymied when they could not buy more adjacent land.

When Rouse acquired 75 percent ownership of Fashion Show as part of a larger $520 million real estate and land transaction with Hughes Corp. in 1996, however, the new owner again looked to purchase more property around the mall.

A solution came in March 1998 when Rouse bought a 17-acre parcel west of the mall for about $27 million. The site had been owned by Mirage Resorts, which used the land for employee parking.

"That really paved the way for us to start planning (a mall expansion)," said Brandin, whose company became Fashion Show's sole owner in April 1998 when it purchased the remaining 25 percent from TrizecHahn Corp., a New York-based real estate investment trust now known as Trizec Properties.

Brandin believes Fashion Show's growth should coincide nicely with Le Reve, as well as possible improvements at the New Frontier site directly north of Fashion Show.

"There is an incredible momentum for sort of a northward march on the Strip," Brandin said. "As you start to get some new hotels (around) Steve Wynn's luxury offering, we'll start to see a new synergy up here."

Monsour said she's already looking ahead to next October, when the second phase of the mall's expansion will add another 117,000 square feet of retail space, or room for about 65 small stores, and the state's first Lord & Taylor store.

"I think the greatest change is still to come with what will happen on Las Vegas Boulevard," Monsour said.

Next fall's addition also includes a Las Vegas Boulevard promenade featuring "The Cloud," a 400-foot-long multi-media canopy suspended above a 72,000-square-foot plaza, as well as meeting space and a third-floor food court overlooking the Strip.

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