The upgrade--which added about 300,000-sf of small-shop space, anchors Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's Home, as well as other features--was expected by Rouse officials to nearly double the mall's sales per-sf to around $1,000. (Chicago-based General Growth does not release sales per-sf for its individual malls, though executives say its performance is in the top 5% of its portfolio.)
The renovation also included the expansion of existing Dillard's, Macy's, Neiman-Marcus, Robinsons-May and Saks Fifth Avenue anchors, as well as the addition of a 480-foot-long canopy 128 feet over the center called the Cloud, on which images are projected at night.
Despite all of those additions, the work at Fashion Show might not be done. May Department Stores had planned to build a Lord & Taylor unit at the center, but the retailer scrapped those plans after it reassessed its strategy for that chain in 2003.
Now General Growth executives are preliminarily discussing what is next for the vacancy. "Fashion Show, because of its location, lends itself to activities on that site we may not consider elsewhere," John Bucksbaum, the company's CEO, told GSR. "The property can be utilized in a bigger and better way than it is today. The retail is doing terrific, but you can complement that."
Some of those possibilities could include another department store, residential space, a hotel-casino, or other uses he said, but warned that there is no timetable set for any additions. "Just because we consider things doesn't mean it turns into something that actually gets done." Bucksbaum also mentioned that the Cloud could be turned from a marketing device for the center to a forum for advertising other companies' products.
Steven Greenberg, president of the Hewlett, NY-based Greenberg Group, a retail real estate consulting firm, told GSR that General Growth has a strong foundation from which to expand the center. "Rouse did a fabulous job on the redevelopment and expansion of the center," he said. "It's become a shopping Mecca in Las Vegas."
Greenberg predicts that any number of strategies that General Growth takes could work for the center, especially with all of the development around it. Earlier this year the Wynn Las Vegas luxury resort opened on the other side of the Strip and Donald Trump and other developers have a major project in the works by the Fashion Show site.
"Now it's going to get a bolt of steroids because you're going to have all of these people coming from the Wynn project," Greenberg said.
Fashion Show is not the only expansion possibility General Growth, which owns 209 centers in 44 states, has on the Strip. The company is also looking adding space to the Grand Canal Shoppes the 445,000-sf retail-entertainment center in the Venetian Casino Resort that it bought from Las Vegas Sands for $766 million last year.
"You're always changing," Bucksbaum said. "That's the beauty of the mall. It's continually evolving."
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