Convention setting appropriate as Vegas experiences shopping boom

Monday, May 24, 1999 | 12:55 p.m.

Some 30,000 industry executives are in town for the annual convention of the International Council of Shopping Centers, coming at a time when the city is experiencing an unprecedented boom in the retailing industry. The convention began Sunday and runs through Thursday.

The Las Vegas Strip will add more than 3 million square feet of new retail facilities over the next two years, creating 15,000 new jobs and and generating annual revenues of $2.8 billion.

The city's booming retail market is drawing top companies from all over the world, said George Connor, senior vice president of retail properties at Colliers International.

"The very best from every city in the world - the best restaurants, the best chefs, the best shops - are going to be concentrated along 2.5 linear miles on the Strip," said Connor. "There's nothing else like it anywhere in the world. It's a huge impact on the economy."

The projects include:

-500,000-square-foot Grand Canal Shops opening next month at The Venetian resort;

-500,000-square-foot Desert Passage retail center, a $250 million project of TrizecHahn Development Corp., opening at the new Aladdin resort next spring;

-1 million-square-foot expansion of the Fashion Show Mall that will include Lord & Taylor;

-35,000-square-foot Rue de la Paix, an upscale French-themed shopping area at the new Paris-Las Vegas resort when it opens in September;

-225,000-square-foot expansion of The Forum Shops at Caesars;

-1 million-square-foot retail center between Mandalay Bay and Luxor resorts, to be developed by Circus Circus Enterprises, Inc.

-Off the Strip, World Entertainment Centers is building a 205,000-square-foot retail-entertainment complex known as Neonopolis in the downtown area.

Even with the proliferation of retail facilities, the Strip is still underretailed based on the growth of tourism, Connor told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

And the boom is putting a strain on the labor market, with retailers and restaurateurs finding it harder to locate and retrain experienced employees.

The 1999 edition of Las Vegas Perspective, a market research publication, shows that last year the average visitor spent $140.80 on food and drinks, and $79.88 on shopping while in Las Vegas.

The survey shows about 23 percent of the 30 million people who visited Las Vegas in 1998 reported household incomes of $80,000 or more, compared to 18 percent a year earlier.

Connor and other tourism executives refer to the trend as "the upscaling of Las Vegas," precipitated by tony resorts such as The Mirage, Caesars Palace, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Four Seasons and The Venetian.

The trendy resorts feature celebrity-chef restaurants and boutique names normally found on New York City's Fifth Avenue and Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive.