Friday, March 21, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
The owner of the Aladdin Hotel has teamed with the developer of the Fashion Show Mall to build a 450,000-square-foot shopping and entertainment complex at the hotel with a Middle East theme.
"We believe the Aladdin sets a great desert passage type of theme," said Alberta Davidson, vice president of marketing for TrizecHahn Corporation, a major real estate developer.
Davidson said the mall could be set along the lines of an Indiana Jones film.
Still, the fictional film swashbuckler -- who makes his living in the film series as a college professor -- probably would have trouble paying for some of the high-end items in the proposed Aladdin mall.
The themed mall, which will feature a collection of high-end specialty stores, boutiques and themed restaurants, is a joint venture of TrizecHahn and Aladdin Holdings, LLC, the owner of the Aladdin Hotel and Casino.
The shopping complex will be part of the overall $700 million redevelopment of the Aladdin, which will include a 2,600-room hotel, a 125,000-square-foot main casino and an 800-room specialty hotel-casino at Harmon Avenue and Audrie Street, one block east of the Strip.
TrizecHahn is the developer of the 820,000-square-foot Fashion Show Mall, which opened in 1981; Horton Plaza in San Diego, Calif., and Park Meadows in Denver, the industry's first retail resort, styled like a Rocky Mountain lodge complete with a wood-burning fireplace.
Throughout the nation, TrizecHahn owns and manages 28 regional shopping centers with more than 26 million square feet of space.
Groundbreaking is scheduled to begin later this year, and the mall is scheduled to open in the fall of 1999.
"In the grand scheme of things, it would be nice to have an opening on the even of the double millennia," said Gretchen Brahier with Rogich Communications Group. "It's a great way to wring out the old and bring out the new."
Developers of the themed mall hope to capitalize on the spending habits of 30 million people who visit the city each year.
Gaming officials note that for the first time, non-gaming revenue is exceeding gaming revenue in Las Vegas as major resorts seek to widen their revenue base with shopping and entertainment venues.
Some of these recent shopping developments include the Forum Shops at Caesars, which opened several years ago and two dozen avant-garde retail shops that opened last month as part of the Rio's Masquerade Village.
And Davidson believes there is room in the growing economy and tourist base of Las Vegas to accommodate much more.
"We feel there remains a niche in the Las Vegas retail market for unique, first-to-the-market retailers," Davidson said. "There are plenty of retailers that have no presence in Las Vegas yet and we'd like to focus on them."
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