Best Las Vegas Shopping

Las Vegas is strong for the very upscale along the Strip and has some uncommon shopping available to the tourists.  Although Vegas is already a very strong shopping destination, by 2009 it will make an even bigger leap.

Here are our recommendations:

• Very high end boutiques:             Caesars Forum
• High end mall:                                Fashion Show Mall
• Outlets:                                            Las Vegas Premium Outlets
• Interesting Mall:                              Town Square
• Mall Walker’s Mall                          Las Vegas Outlet Stores
• Ghost Town:                                   Neonopolis

Unique Shopping in Las Vegas

There are few truly unique shopping experiences in the U.S. with chains dominating any city’s shopping.  In Las Vegas there are some stores that you may not have seen, especially if you are visiting from a small to medium sized city.

If you are from NYC and know what 31 W. 54th means, you are probably a well-to-do woman who likes shoes.  The only other Manolo Blahnik store in the U.S. is at the Wynn Esplanade with only 13 worldwide.  Bring a minimum of $600 a pair or $1,100 if you prefer boots.

There are 36 Ferrari dealerships in North America and Wynn has one.  If you are lucky at the very good poker room nearby, you can immediately swing by and buy a half dozen or so.  By the way, car donations to Vegas Made Easy.com are accepted!

At Le Boulevard in the Paris casino, you can look over some French wines at Le Cave.  Although most on-line wine sellers have variety, Le Cave may have an unfamiliar wine or two.  If you are visiting from a city with a very good French importer, it may not be worth the visit.

Only 34 cities in the U.S. have a Fry’s which is mostly in California and Texas.  It is 175,000 square feet of Geek and Gadget heaven.  The Las Vegas Fry’s Electronics has quarters for a slot machine outside and is part of the Town Square outdoors mall. 

An outdoors mall is the same as an indoors mall whose air conditioning isn’t working.  The District at Green Valley and Town Square are examples of this major improvement in mall design which can only be appreciated when you are running by the coordinated facades in pouring rain. 

Robb & Stucky (also at Town Square) only has 9 combined interior and patio outlets in the U.S. (out of a total of 18 stores).  Counting all of their square footage, they are slightly larger than Fry’s.  A Wal-Mart Supercenter is about the same size as a Fry’s. 

Boca Park’s (off-Strip Summerlin) The Great Indoors is somewhat comparable to a Robb & Stucky.  They only have 16 stores in the U.S. and are about 130,000 square feet.  

Neiman-Marcus has 41 stores in the U.S. not counting the Last Calls which are their clearance centers.  You can see this full-blown store in the Fashion Show Mall.

Bass Pro Shops has 47 stores open with 9 more planned for a total of 56.  Their Las Vegas store is a bit larger than average at around 165,000 square feet of outdoors related shopping such as hunting, fishing, etc.  For comparison, the L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine is about 162,000 square feet.  Bass Pro Shops is attached to the Silverton casino.

Upscale Shopping

For variety in high end shopping, Las Vegas is very strong with Caesars Forum Shops, Fashion Show Mall, Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes and the Miracle Mile (Planet Hollywood) combining for over 600 stores.

Fashion Show Mall has a Nordstrom’s, Neiman-Marcus and Dillard’s among over 200 stores and restaurants.  It is across from the Wynn and you can usually get shuttles (they don’t check for room keys that often) along the Strip.  See Getting Around for shuttles. 

It has a Gross Leaseable Area of almost 1.8M square feet and it is the biggest mall in Nevada.  Its store count of over 200 is the highest in Las Vegas.  Fashion Show Mall is the opposite of Neonopolis which has 1 jeweler and a Jillian’s as the only clients in its 235,000 GLA.

GLA is not the same as total square feet because malls have offices, rest rooms, etc. that are not leased out.  Vegas Made Easy.com tries to present GLA whenever possible because it is more accurate indicator as far as shopping experience.

Caesars Forum Shops are directly attached to Caesars’ casino.  Their high end retailers include Fendi and Gucci. They have some very good restaurants such as Palm, BOA, Il Mulino, etc.  For a high end shopper, Vegas Made Easy.com recommends Caesars Forum as having the best mix of high boutique shops and dining.  Fashion Show has more mid-level stores and is better for mall walking.

Venetian’s Grand Canal Shoppes and the Miracle Mile next to Planet Hollywood are very good for the upscale shopper.  The Miracle Mile has more of the smaller shops such as food retailers and restaurants while the Grand Canal Shoppes also have some non-retail, non-food venues.  The Bellagio Via and Wynn Esplande have cherry-picked some very high end stores but have less variety than the major shopping malls.   

At the high end of the market, most of the brands use RPM.  Retail Price Maintenance means that the fancy label can drop retailers who discount and thus RPM keeps prices in line.  This means you cannot get bargains at the very high end unless you are a foreign visitor exchanging your expensive currency for cheap U.S. dollars.

However, if you prefer factory seconds for some high end brands, you can get discounts at the outlet stores.  In Las Vegas, there are 2 outlet centers.  Las Vegas Outlet Stores is near Town Square and can be reached by the Deuce.  This was formerly called the Belz Factory Outlet Center and has about 130 stores and restaurants.  Vegas Made Easy.com rates this as the best for mall walkers.

The Las Vegas Premium outlets are located near downtown off the Grand Central Parkway and have 118 retailers and restaurants with another 31 planned for a total of 149.  Both outlet centers have major brands for 30% off or more.  Although both are owned by the same company, we slightly prefer the one near downtown for selection of clothing and shoe stores. 

Regional Malls

If you have a car or are a local with a middle class budget, the top regional mall is the Galleria in Henderson on Sunset Blvd. which has 154 stores and restaurants in 1,051,000 square feet.  The Boulevard Mall on Maryland Parkway is bigger with about 170 store/food outlets in about 1,130,000 square feet.  Neither is recommended for mall walkers.

Las Vegas absorbs about 1.8M square feet of new retail space a year with one of the lowest retail vacancy rates in the U.S. (under 5%).  Most new projects are about two-thirds pre-leased.  In 2009 there could be several large regionals opening to take advantage of this capacity absorption ability. 

The northwest part of the city could see the Great Mall of Las Vegas add about 1.2M GLA.  It will be near 95 and the 215 with both an indoors and outdoors motif.  It might open late 2009 or slip into 2010. 

The Summerlin Centre is an outdoors mall scheduled to add roughly 1.4M GLA at the intersection of 215 and Sahara.  They have already signed up Nordstrom and Crate & Barrel’s first Vegas representative.  Of these 3 malls, it is the furthest along. 

Desert Star in the under-stored North Las Vegas area (N. Fifth and Craig) is scheduled for about 1.2M square feet with a design very similar to the outdoors Desert Ridge in Phoenix.  All three of these projects could add about 360-480 additional stores/restaurants to the Las Vegas area by Vegas Made Easy.com’s estimates.

Malls On Las Vegas Blvd.