Mandalay Place offers alternatives

Walkway provides shopping surprises

Mandalay Place offers tourists and locals an alternative to the normal hustle and bustle of a shopping mall. The well-contained 100,000-square-foot area located on the sky bridge between Mandalay Bay and Luxor offers over 30 retailers, including specialty boutiques, as well as several restaurants.

Gordon Absher, director of public relations for Mandalay Bay, said the shopping experience will be one-of-a-kind because of the new occupants and wide variety of services available.

"People in Las Vegas have been driving under the steel superstructure for years," he said. "There was always a plan for a mall there. It's recently become a reality."

Although the stores are located on a walkway, the designers of the space cleverly arranged stores and created dramatic display windows.

"The designers are geniuses," Absher said. "There's not a lot of space, and the expectation is that it's going to be a straight shot between the two hotels. But through the architecture, and through the types of stores they brought in, no matter where you're from you will come into Mandalay Place and see things you haven't seen before."

More than half the retail stores at Mandalay place are open. Absher said executives hoped to balance the familiar, high-end retailers with new stores and local favorites.

"Mandalay Place wanted an exceptional shopping experience for its customers, and found retailers with familiar names that had new concepts," he said. "We also succeeded by bringing in stores that have one or two others anywhere. The Art of Shaving, for example, only had four other locations nationwide before this one. We brought it west."

Mandalay Place also offers the first Nike Golf store in the country and skinklinic, a new spa concept that was started in New York City by the former president of Revlon.

One of the most talked about spaces is 55 Degrees Wine + Design, a retail wine store that has a place for tasting and was created by the same group that designed the wine program at the Mandalay Bay restaurant Aureole.

"55 Degrees has one of the best wine selections available," Absher said. "They created a very unique environment. It's a friendly wine store even for the layman. They do have very expensive bottles of wine, but there are some reasonable bottles that people can buy and take up to their rooms."

Caffe Giorgio, a stylish Italian restaurant owned by the same family behind Valentino at The Venetian, is as comfortable offering gelato as it is Veuve Cliquot by the half-bottle.

Elton "LT" Salinas, owner and namesake of Elton's inside Mandalay Place, said the decision to open in the new mall was a good one.

"I'm a freak for presentation," Salinas said of his store's stylish window display and modern decor. "When 55 million people come here, they come for reasons other than just gambling. We're driven by brand recognition. This is also the only multi-line store that carries Diesel."

Elton's also carries ties by Tino Cosma, Italian sport coats, items made from cashmere and Spanish lamb, sweaters from St. Croix, shoes and many other accessories for men.

Salinas enlisted the help of his son, Scott, to handle the younger men's lines, which features several leather shirts, including a laser-cut garb worn by Vin Diesel in the movie "XXX."

"There's life in a multi-line store," Salinas said. "Diesel is (Scott's) idea. If we ever agreed I wouldn't work with him."

Other stores that are now open at Mandalay Place include: Bardelli and Bardelli Shoes, The Chocolate Swan, Davidoff, Forever Silver, Godt-Cleary Gallery, Le Paradis, Lunettes, MAX & Co, Musette, Oilily, The Reading Room, Samantha Chang, Sauvage, Shoe Obsession, Urban Outfitters and Vintage Ra.


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