Desert Passage drops ‘Aladdin’ from name

Friday, Aug. 11, 2000 | 11:07 a.m.

With less than a week before the opening of the Aladdin hotel-casino and the attached $300 million Desert Passage retail mall, one would think there have been hundreds of hours spent strategizing on how best to jointly market the properties.

But officials with TrizecHahn Development, which is building the 500,000-square-foot Desert Passage-themed retail center, have been gritting their teeth as Thursday's opening day looms, saying that there have been few such meetings and that the sharing of information with Aladdin executives has been a one-way conveyance.

TrizecHahn, a Canadian company with shopping centers and malls across the United States, and the Sommer Trust, a partner in the hotel-casino, are partners in Desert Passage. The Aladdin sought out TrizecHahn to develop the retail operation.

A TrizecHahn official thinks the underlying reason for the rift between the partners may be in the differences in corporate culture between the two companies.

Aladdin marketing officials and executives could not be reached for comment.

There's been acrimony in everything from the placement of signage to opening-day festivities. TrizecHahn even backed off on calling the 130-store mall "Desert Passage at the Aladdin" because the hotel-casino demanded that its marketers review every piece of collateral material with the Aladdin name on it.

"We hope that the relationship gets much better," said Paul Beirnes, director of marketing for Desert Passage. "But it's difficult because we come from such diverse backgrounds."

Beirnes said the conflict began when the two companies agreed to meet to discuss marketing strategy several months ago.

"We sat down in a room with them and at the beginning of the meeting, we said, 'Let's talk about our ideas.' They said, 'Fine, you go first,' and we went through a lot of our plans with them. Then, when we were done, they said, 'We're not going to show you anything.'

"We were flabbergasted," Beirnes said. "What kind of a partnership is that?"

Beirnes said from that shaky start, matters got worse. They feuded over the placement of a sign on the exterior of the property, a location Beirnes said his company did not need the Aladdin's permission to place, but communicated as a courtesy.

"I'll leave out the expletives, but one of their executives told us there was no way the sign was going to go there," Beirnes said.

TrizecHahn started marketing the property as Desert Passage at the Aladdin, but one day Beirnes' office received a call telling it that any materials going out with the Aladdin name on it had to be reviewed by Aladdin's team.

"So we just dropped it," Beirnes said. "Now, it's just Desert Passage."

Beirnes said his office attempted to set up marketing meetings with Aladdin officials, but couldn't make any headway. He said mall managers wanted to have discussions with the Aladdin about inevitable queuing issues that will occur whenever there's a major event at the Aladdin Performing Arts Theatre.

The mall encircles the 7,000-seat performing arts center and much of the access to the massive auditorium will be from the retail area.

"We thought it would be a good idea to talk about where we're going to put people when thousands of them fill up Desert Passage to go to an event," Beirnes said.

But requests for meetings were put off by the Aladdin, he said.

So, in November, Beirnes sent out a routine press release, but it described the location of the property as "next door to Paris and across the street from Bellagio," omitting a reference to the Aladdin.

"That," Beirnes said, "got their attention."

But the relationship remains lukewarm at best, and Beirnes is fearful that ultimately it will affect the tenants of the mall. He said initially, the Aladdin planned a low-key opening.

"They were just going to open the doors at 7 (p.m.) and let people in," Beirnes said. "We wanted to do a little more."

Beirnes said his team met with county officials about crowd control issues and was asked if there were plans for fireworks. He said no.

A few days later, Aladdin officials met independently with the same officials to discuss their plans -- and they included a fireworks display.

Beirnes shrugged. "What are we supposed to do?"

Published reports have documented financial problems in the construction of the $1.4 billion Aladdin project. Late last month in the final licensing approval, Aladdin Chief Executive Richard Goeglein told the Nevada Gaming Commission that the property would open at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, with a fireworks show four hours later.

Aladdin Chairman Jack Sommer said at that time that the company recently received a $50 million loan from the Bank of Nova Scotia to cover preopening costs, marketing and working capital.

Beirnes said he was given the green light from his bosses to talk openly about the rift between the Aladdin and TrizecHahn because his company has never seen anything like it and their officers want people to know they are trying to work with the Aladdin.

He said he thinks at the root of the problem are the vastly different corporate cultures of the two companies. As a retail company, he said TrizecHahn is more open and willing to share information; as a gaming enterprise, Aladdin tends to be more close to the vest.

"It's important for us to get the Desert Passage brand equity out there and we feel they could be a really good partner for us," Beirnes said.

He said it's hard to gauge whether Aladdin would ever change since for competitive reasons, casinos always want to have the upper hand, "and ties always go to the dealer."

"It's the same thing that happens in the casino," Beirnes said. "The house always has the edge. They deal your cards face up and they deal their own cards face down."