In Las Vegas, the newest payoff in real estate is retail

LAS VEGAS – It doesn't take long to realize how big shopping has become in this desert destination that casino gambling once ruled.

Digital signs inside the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace urge visitors to "Shop as the Romans Do" along a 675,000-square-foot path with a Roman streetscape and talking statues. A model for experiential retailing.

About 29 million people visited the Forum Shops, which marked its 25th anniversary in May, while 43 million visited Las Vegas last year. That means more than one out of every two checked out Forum Shops.

Retail and nongaming attractions — along with Vegas shows, 149,000 hotel rooms, and top restaurants and bars — brought in more than $11.2 billion in revenue last year, double the $5.2 billion that table games and slot machines generated. The appetite for retail is evident up and down the Strip.

MGM Resorts International executives have held discussions to replace the 22 million-gallon Bellagio Fountains with a boutique shopping and restaurant promenade, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported last month.

In 2014, Treasure Island Hotel & Casino drained a lagoon that was used to stage a pirate show in front of the property to convert it into retail, and, in 2015, Bally's converted a garden into an outdoor mall, the Grand Bazaar Shops, a short walk from Caesars Palace.

The tables turned in 1999, when retail and other nongaming revenue collectively surpassed casino gambling for the first time. The gap has kept growing.

In 2000, the average trip expenditure for shopping was $94. By 2016, it was $156.91, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Las Vegas' retail dwarfs that of Atlantic City, N.J., by virtue of its sheer size, said Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Andrew Zarnett. "There are so many more rooms in Las Vegas, and the average visit to Las Vegas is so much longer."

Retail is so hot along the Strip that it is common to find multiple locations of the same brand. Mike Mixer, executive managing director in Colliers International's Las Vegas office, said there have been at least three $1 billion-plus sales transactions in the last 12 months for mall properties on the Strip: Crystals at CityCenter, Fashion Show Mall and the Miracle Mile Shops at the Planet Hollywood resort.

"Both high-end luxury and discount retailers are enjoying success," Mixer said.

Or want more of it.

American Eagle Outfitters, Adidas and T-Mobile are all building flagship stores at the mall, as is DSW. Skechers recently opened.

"Vegas is evolving, and retail is evolving," said Michael Hirschfeld, co-leader of JLL's National Retail Tenant Services, as he led a tour of Showcase Mall in 98-degree weather recently. "The brands now want to be here because the people are here, and based on the stats, they're here shopping."

Many of the drugstores and restaurants on the Strip are the most profitable locations of their chains nationwide: CVS, Walgreens, Cracker Barrel and White Castle, to name a few.

In May 1992, Simon Property Group Inc. unveiled the Forum Shops, a first-of-its-kind retail destination with luxury stores and such celebrity-chef restaurants as Wolfgang Puck's Spago. It now houses more than 160 retailers and restaurants and remains among the top-performing enclosed retail centers worldwide.

Khalid Waleed, 49, and his wife, Sumaya Abdulatif, 35, who were visiting Las Vegas from Salwa, Kuwait, took it all in recently.