Aladdin mall tenants sue to keep leases

Tuesday, May 15, 2001 | 10:30 a.m.

Two companies operating businesses in the Aladdin hotel-casino's Desert Passage retail mall have filed affidavits in Clark County District Court opposing eviction notices issued by mall management.

Amici II Ltd., doing business as Casablanca Clothiers, and Furniture Out of Africa Inc., doing business as African Odyssey, made the filings last week after the stores received notices of delinquent rent payments.

Both responses allege mall managers failed to keep promises about customer traffic and anchor tenant issues.

The statement from Amici, which signed a lease with Desert Passage Dec. 3, 1998, said mall officials promised "a large anchor tenant, then designated as Nordstrom," and nearby construction of a Planet Hollywood hotel-casino. Nordstrom eventually signed up as an anchor tenant for the competing Fashion Show mall and Planet Hollywood filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and abandoned the concept for a hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

Amici also said Desert Passage officials misrepresented traffic and projected sales per square foot to be comparable with malls at Caesars Palace and the Venetian hotel-casino. While the Forum Shops at Caesars and the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian list sales per square foot of $1,200 and $1,000 on average each year, respectively, the affidavit said Casablanca, a men's retail clothing store, had sales of $300 per square foot and Desert Passage averages $450.

The filing from African Odyssey echoed the complaints about customer traffic and the mall's failure to attract an anchor tenant.

Desert Passage, in its notices to the mall stores sent in March, said Casablanca was in arrears in rent payments by $139,666 and African Odyssey was behind by $57,543.