Coming Soon To The Vegas Strip? 75K Sq Ft Of Luxury Retail

Luxury retail is stretching out in Sin City.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the Wynn Las Vegas resort has announced plans to add more than 75,000 square feet of luxury retail space to the Vegas Strip.

Called Wynn Plaza, the shopping-centric addition will be two stories tall and decked out with atriums and a skylight rotunda, notes LVRJ. Scheduled to open in fall 2017, Wynn Plaza will bring the total retail square footage at Wynn Las Vegas to more than 173,500.

“We had 300 or more feet on the Strip right on the sidewalk in unused real estate that was very, very valuable,” said Wynn Resorts Chairman and CEO Steve Wynn in a statement shared by the outlet. “This represents an opportunity for future development that is quite unique.”

Brian Sorrentino, director at Las Vegas-based ROI Commercial Real Estate, commented: “Casinos used to make it so people had to make a commitment to go into their facilities, and once you were in there, they kept you there. As time went on and the markets changed, less people are spending time at the tables and are looking for more experiential things, such as food and beverage, entertainment and shopping.”

“It’s natural to bring people in off the street,” continued Sorrentino, “especially given the fact that Fashion Show mall, just across the street from the Wynn, just completed [its] expansion and this is probably a direct response to that.”

Describing the planned Wynn Plaza as “a fairly modest supply addition when viewed in the context of the overall market,” Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst for Applied Analysis, told LVRJ: “There are a number of large-scale retail venues located within the resort corridor that are anchored by major hotel-casinos, which include a number of malls that are in the 500,000-square-foot range, and reports tend to suggest that they are succeeding in the current market. While we remain cautious about the amount of retail inventory located within the resort corridor, consumer spending trends have continued to evolve and favor nongaming amenities, such as shopping.”