Fashion Show Wants to Renovate Its Strip-Facing Facade

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Fashion Show mall won't be left behind when it comes to the dramatic explosion of retail and dining options headed to the Strip over the next two years. The Tropicana Las Vegas, The Linq, MGM Resorts, Forum Shops at Caesars, SLS Las Vegas and even next door at T.I., will all be adding more eating plus shopping options to present a broader Las Vegas experience. And for months, Fashion Show has been working on major plans to remain relevant amid the flurry of announcements.

Five new restaurants will be brought to their ground floor pedestrian plaza when the entire Strip-facing entrance will be overhauled and add a prominent outdoor dining component to each of the five new ventures. The indoor and outdoor restaurants will push the front of the mall much closer to the Strip, with a view to create a new pedestrian environment, including shading from new trees and landscaping that will be a far cry from the current blaring white concrete concourse.

Faced before a skeptical local Advisory Board, a General Growth Properties representative from Chicago described the partners they are talking to, as "truly fantastic restaurants." Fashion Show mall was purchased by GGP in 1981.

The repeated Las Vegas role model for their dining with a view concept is Mon Ami Gabi at Paris Las Vegas. At this north end of the Strip, the view will be mostly of the Wynn and Encore resorts, not the Bellagio fountains.

The second level of the mall will also be pushed out, creating the opportunity of an expanded size for some existing mall tenants and removing retail from some areas to create a new overall look.

One possibility was referred to as the "Cloud Bar" after the namesake, larger than a football field canopy that rests over the mall entrance, used for projecting promotions, videos and local advertising. The imagined bar would jut out of the second floor, look over the new scene below and create a visual focal point to entice visitors over the pedestrian bridge from the Wynn resort side of Las Vegas Blvd.

On the third floor, part of the existing food court will be "re-purposed" and probably more mixed-use space will be added on that level.

On the plaza itself, the current wide open concrete vista will vanish. Eleven new retail kiosks have been proposed, two of them designated for dining, currently thought to be a smoothie spot and one selling sandwich-type snacks for visitors wishing to grab and go, but still spend time people watching.

The construction timetable, while fluid at this early stage, is sketched enough for work to begin this July, with the major upheaval to begin in January 2015, with an eye for all to be finished on "Black Friday" Nov. 27, 2015. Without revealing figures, a General Growth spokesman cited Las Vegas as generating triple the usual revenue over their average property around the country. GGP owns or has interest in 124 large-scale U.S. malls, including the Grand Canal Shoppes located diagonally south across the Strip.

The last major construction addition in Fashion Show was completed in 2004 at a reported $1 billion cost, an event seemingly paid tribute by GGP's own Website that still prominently features a picture of the Fashion Show with the Frontier Casino in the background. That casino was imploded in 2007.
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