BILL ORDINE In Vegas, shopping rivals gambling

Like many Las Vegas visitors, SueLynne Morgan knows she's going to leave a healthy share of her vacation bankroll there. But unlike a lot of Vegas travelers, Morgan knows that she'll be taking something home with her as a result.
That's because, while her husband's in the casinos, the 43-year old court reporter from Oklahoma spends most of her time and money in Vegas' glitzy, upscale shopping malls.
"My days are pretty much filled up in the stores," said Morgan, who travels to Vegas three or four times a year from Duncan, Okla., about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City. "I get up in the morning, head to one of the malls while my husband gambles. We meet for lunch, then he goes back to the tables, and I head back to the stores.
"Where I live, you just can't find the same kind of shops and items. And so many times I've worn something I bought in Vegas, and someone will say, 'I know where you got that!"'
Brought in the malls
In the last decade, Las Vegas has added world-class retail to its long list of attractions. There are now four major malls on the famed Las Vegas Strip, three of them attached to casinos. One of those shopping centers, the stand-alone Fashion Show, will have nearly two million square feet of retail space when an expansion is completed next year, including eight department stores and 300 smaller shops.
When Bugsy Siegel conceived of Vegas nearly 60 years ago as a resort destination, even the visionary gangster couldn't have imagined any lure beyond freewheeling casino gambling that would cause people to venture to the Nevada desert for a good time.
But since the late 1970s, as dozens of states have allowed casinos of some stripe, whether traditional (on land), riverboat or American Indian, Vegas has found itself responding to the challenge of spreading legalized gambling.
"All of a sudden, half the population in the United States lives within an hour-and-half drive of a casino," said Robert Stewart, spokesman for Park Place Entertainment. (The company owns Caesars Palace and 26 other casinos and is changing its name to Caesars Entertainment.) "Las Vegas needed other elements to put distance between itself and other destinations."
Almost half the visitors to Vegas shop. Including people who said they didn't shop at all, the average retail expenditure from 2000 to 2002 was $90 per person annually, according to a research report by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Considering that about 36 million visitors come to town annually, that's a lot of handbags and silk scarves.
Looking back
When the Fashion Show opened in 1981, it was the first mall on the Strip. At the time, it stood apart, just north of Caesars Palace and across the street from the departed Desert Inn on what would now be considered a quaint streetscape, with stretches of open desert and the occasional tumbleweed blowing across the road.
Now the Fashion Show is part of a caravan of megaresorts lining the street, with casino impresario Steve Wynn's multibillion-dollar casino hotel rising from the rubble of the DI across the boulevard.
Like the other malls along the Strip, the Fashion Show has embraced a concept that, if it wasn't minted in Las Vegas, should have been -- the notion of shopping as entertainment, or, as the retailers like to put it, "shoppertainment." One of the latest features at the Fashion Show is an 80-foot fashion runway that emerges from beneath the floor of a great hall. On this stage, with light and audio effects, models strut the latest couture, and car manufacturers introduce new models with the pomp and drama of an Olympics opening ceremony. And the mall folks plan on doing it twice an hour several hours a day almost daily, thank you very much.
The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace was the second major mall on the Strip, opening in 1992, and arguably has had the greatest impact.
For one thing, from the moment it opened its doors, it established that a full-blown casino mall could be both a major attraction and a financial success. One measure of retail performance is how much revenue a mall's stores earn per square foot in a year. At the Forum Shops, according to a mall spokesperson, that figure is about $1,300 per square foot -- roughly four times the national average.
Forum Shops' features
With about 105 stores and an expansion ongoing, the Forum Shops has done it with a mix of:
*Kitschy entertainment. Disney-style animatronic figures of Roman gods and a noisy tableau of the sinking of Atlantis have tourists gaping daily.
*Themed decor. Shoppers wander through an Italian village where the sky changes hourly from dawn to dusk.
*Eye-popping retail. There's a veritable roll call of designer all-stars, including Gucci, Versace, Fendi, Bernini and Armani.
Adding to the Forum Shops' cachet is that on any given Tuesday afternoon, SueLynn from Duncan, Okla., can expect to see celebrities who are just as inclined to cruise the mall.
"I don't like the guy, but I did see Mike Tyson once near the big fountain in the middle," she said.
Had she popped in on some other recent days, she might have spotted actress Michelle Pfeiffer delighting in the toys at FAO Schwarz, movie star Demi Moore browsing the handbags at Judith Lieber.
Other malls' offerings
Two other malls anchored to casinos are the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian Resort Hotel-Casino and the Desert Passage at the Aladdin Hotel-Casino.
The Grand Canal Shoppes has its own version of St. Mark's Square, and a canal courses through the 85 to 90 stores. Street performers play out scenes from operas. Living statues mug for tourists' cameras. And, schmaltzy as it might seem, the bridge that crosses the canal is a favorite spot for wedding ceremonies and photos.
The Desert Passage has a Moroccan flavor, with 140 stores. Many have familiar names -- GAP, Victoria's Secret, Crabtree & amp; Evelyn -- and there's the occasional surprise -- Hilo Hattie, of Aloha-wear fame, and Tommy Bahama. And in the Merchants' Harbor, where the hull of a 155-foot steamer is moored, clouds roll in, thunder rumbles, and rain falls from the painted heavens every hour on the hour Monday through Thursday and twice an hour Friday through Sunday.
And soon there will be a bargain-hunter's delight just west of downtown Vegas, where the casinos are grittier and have the roguish charm of a bygone era. Next month, Premium Outlets is opening a designer outlet mall with Ann Taylor, Eddie Bauer, Ralph Lauren, and bunches more famous names at bargain prices.
We bet SueLynn Morgan is thrilled. Demi Moore, too.