Familiar Strip buildings demolished to make way for retail complex

Construction crews recently turned the low-slung Cable Center Shops, an adjacent Boulevard food court and outdoor Fatburger eatery with slushie bar into piles of rubble.

The demolition site, on Las Vegas Boulevard near Harmon Avenue, is just south of Hawaiian Marketplace, a closed retail complex that was still standing Monday but is also slated to be torn down.

These parcels are all owned by Gindi Capital. Last summer, Clark County commissioners approved its plans to develop a three-story, roughly 300,000-square-foot retail complex there.

Project plans call for shops, restaurants, supper clubs, service bars and outdoor entertainment space, county documents show.

Moreover, a hotel “may be submitted at a later time to be located at the rear of the building” but was not part of the current plans, according to a letter to the county last summer from the landlord’s representative.

Clark County issued demolition permits for Gindi’s project site last fall, records show.

New York-based Gindi acquired the roughly 9.5-acre spread for $172 million in 2019. When it announced the purchase, the firm said it was working with its design and development teams to “unveil plans for a new flagship retail, entertainment and dining experience.”

Gindi — which co-owns the neighboring Showcase Mall, known for its facade featuring a giant Coke bottle and M&M’s — did not respond to a request for comment.

All told, its project would reshape a busy stretch of the Strip that gets heavy foot traffic and is near several megaresorts. The retail complex isn’t the only ground-up development eyed for that block, either.

Gindi’s spread is just south of property owned by Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta, who purchased roughly 6 acres at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue for $270 million last year. Clark County commissioners later approved his plans to develop a 43-story, 2,420-room hotel-casino on the site.

Fertitta has since torn down some buildings there, including retail space and a Travelodge motel, but hasn’t announced when he would start construction on the resort.

Plans have called for the upscale project to feature restaurants, convention space, spa, wedding chapel, auto showroom and a theater with around 2,500 seats.

It would also include suites and villas, VIP salons and a bar and lounge for high-limit gamblers, building plans indicate.

Project representative Rebecca Miltenberger, an attorney with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, told commissioners last fall that the development would be a “high-end casino resort,” and she provided a timeline.

“We are very excited to bring this project to fruition over the next two years,” she said.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.