Developers are spending somewhere north of $2 billion to renovate Vegas-area casinos, rolling out at least 50 new restaurants and constructing roughly 1 million square feet of retail space (some of it surrounding a pair of Las Vegas Raiders football facilities shaping up for that NFL team's relocation from Oakland, Calif., to Sin City in 2020).

Visitors would have to stay several weeks to make the rounds of the many new eating options. Two food halls have opened since RECon 2018, including a Las Vegas branch of Italian concept Eataly, in a 40,000-square-foot space fronting Park MGM. The Block 16 Urban Food Hall, on the Cosmopolitan’s second floor, has enlisted New Orleans cult favorite District: Donuts Sliders Brew; tequila-mezcal bar Ghost Donkey; Hattie B’s Hot Chicken; Pok Pok Wing; and Tekka Bar: Handroll & Sake.

New French restaurant Partage is packing them in on Spring Mountain Road, and Favorite Bistro has opened its doors at The LINQ Promenade, where it, too, offers French fare, from pedigreed restaurateurs Ariane de Senneville and Thierry Bourdoncle, who are making their very first U.S. foray. “Every famous and not-so-famous chef wants to be in Las Vegas,” said Liz Clare, principal of investment retail sales and leasing in the Las Vegas office of Avison Young.

Also opening at the LINQ is a permanent pop-up exhibition space geared to pop-culture topics and trends, including museums and local artists and performers. Another special-events venue, the 25,000-square-foot Mansion 54, just off Las Vegas Boulevard, at Charleston, has opened in the former Hartland Mansion.

Maxie’s is a new spot for breakfast, lunch and dinner, next to the Linq High Roller, the world’s tallest observation wheel. A 300-seat Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club is to arrive at the LINQ by this summer, and also set to come there is Kind Heaven, a two-story, multisensory Asian-culture celebration. 

The 126,000-square-foot Area15 on Desert Inn Road, billed by developer Fisher Brothers as “a radically reimagined retail, art and entertainment complex” is set to open later this year. MSG Sphere, an 18,000-seat e-sports and entertainment arena to be surrounded by restaurants and bars, is to open in 2021 behind The Venetian Resort. “Las Vegas isn’t shy about trying innovative concepts,” said Clare.

More casino-hotels are reconfiguring to add on outside restaurant, bar and entertainment space, says Clare. “The Strip resorts are very conscious of the Millennial consumer and are working towards adapting and stepping up to their purchasing model.”

The 70,000-square-foot Wynn Plaza center, fronting The Wynn, is a prime example. It added Italian restaurant Cipriani ‘s first West Coast facility as well as organic coffee house Urth Caffé to its 25-space roster, which includes Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Stella McCartney.

“Las Vegas is still considered a good buy compared to our southern neighbor, Los Angeles,” Clare said. Vegas continues to create new areas for retail to thrive, she says. “People from all over the world know about Las Vegas, and many want a piece of it.”

Among retail projects completed in 2018 is the 250,000-square-foot Skye Canyon Marketplace, a community shopping center just off U.S. 95 in northwest Las Vegas, anchored by a 124,000-square-foot Smith’s Marketplace grocery store. The center is part of the 1,000-acre master-planned Skye Canyon development. The Las Vegas retail market comprises slightly less than 113 million square feet, according to Logic Commercial.

Non-Strip retail tenants absorbed about 530,000 square feet last year, including 283,200 square feet in the fourth quarter, helping to ease the market vacancy rate to 7.7 percent, according to Colliers International. Rents in nonmall, non-Strip retail inched up in the fourth quarter, to $1.38 per square foot on a triple-net basis, from $1.36 per square foot in the previous quarter, Colliers says.

Work is under way on the Dapper Cos.’ 200,000-square-foot Bend at West Sunset Road and Durango Drive, across from IKEA. Inaugural tenants include a 13-screen Galaxy Theatres, a Great Greek Mediterranean Grill, a Bin 702, a Vegenation, a Lotus of Siam, a Freed’s Dessert Shop and a Mothership Coffee Roasters.

The Palms, under new owner Station Casinos, is pushing forth with $690 million in improvements, already adding on such restaurants as Scotch 80 Prime and Vetri Cucina. Greene St. Kitchen and Shark, chef Bobby Flay’s international seafood concept, are coming too.

The 400-room Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas has been rebranded Waldorf Astoria, and Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, now under the ownership of billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, is soon to become an upscale Virgin Hotel. The property will close for several months this winter for renovations and rebranding.

Downtown Vegas casinos are upping the ante as well. The D Las Vegas plans a 777-room, 500-foot-high addition and an expanded casino floor that will, at 117,740 square feet, be the largest in the downtown. Boyd Gaming is investing $32 million to expand the Fremont Hotel & Casino, including a 509-room hotel tower. And the Downtown Grand Hotel & Casino is constructing a 250,000-square-foot tower set for a mid-2020 completion, adding on almost 500 rooms to its existing 600 or so. 

The NFL’s Raiders broke ground in January on a practice and office complex off St. Rose Parkway near Henderson Executive Airport. Barbra Coffee, Henderson’s economic development director, told the press that developers are “certainly taking a serious look at West Henderson right now. … I definitely think it will bring economic impact that will ripple outward again and again.”

The 65,000-seat Raiders stadium, at I-15 and Hacienda Avenue, is on pace for a 2020 kickoff. “Retailers are figuring out how traffic will flow during events and game days, and the security requirements,” said Clare. The Raiders relocation is already boosting such area centers as Town Square and Premium Outlet Mall, she notes.

Local developer Stable Development is planning the 300,000-square-foot, mixed-use Village on St. Rose Parkway, to include restaurant and retail components. Last year Costco opened in the nearby St. Rose Square neighborhood center, which is expected to top out at 466,000 square feet when completed. La Bonita, a Hispanic supermarket chain with six Las Vegas–area stores, is set to open a 50,000-square-foot store this year in Henderson.

Among the new Mexican restaurants coming to town are BBQ Mexicana, Diablo’s Cantina, ¡Salud! and Uno Más Street Tacos & Spirits.

In February the aging Stratosphere Casino, Hotel & Tower began its transition into The Strat Hotel, Casino and SkyPod. That rebranding is to include Blvd & Main Taphouse, 108 Eats and Strat Café & Wok. La La Noodle has come to the Park MGM, and The Factory Kitchen and Mott 32 are at the Venetian.

Custom-apparel stalwart Indochino has opened its very first Las Vegas showroom, at the Fashion Show mall. The 1,500-square-foot emporium is on the upper level, near Macy’s. For its first Vegas Strip-side location, Target is set to open a 20,000-square-foot store in the former Smith & Wollensky space at Showcase Mall, near the MGM Grand. Burlington, previously Burlington Coat Factory, will open a 50,000-square-foot store inside a new building just north of the MGM Grand for its first Strip store. A replacement Smith & Wollensky was set to open at the Grand Canal Shoppes as of the time this article went to press.

RECon attendees who fondly recall their rounds of golf at the Wynn Golf Club can soon create new golf memories: The property, within walking distance of the Las Vegas Convention Center, had been set for gutting to make way for a Wynn lagoon, but it will remain a golf course now instead. Golf course architect Tom Fazio, the original designer, has been called back to give the place a fresh look, and plans are to reopen the course at about the time the new Wynn meetings center opens, in mid-2020.

The list of new food venues keeps growing. At Palace Station, bBd’s joins Boathouse Asian Eatery. In neighboring Summerlin, Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill opened at Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa, while Beaumont’s Southern Kitchen has come to Texas Station, near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

According to Colliers, southern Nevada’s food-services and drinking-places sector created a prodigious 8,400 jobs last year.