‘A service environment’: Western boots brand brings flagship to Strip
Western style just got bigger on the Strip.
Boot and apparel brand Ariat opened a roughly 10,000-square-foot flagship store at 63 Las Vegas, a four-story complex at CityCenter on Harmon Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard, on Thursday. Ariat is partially owned by Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher and his family, and led by co-founder and CEO Beth Cross.
The new store is about double the size of a standard shop, Chief Marketing Officer Liz Bradley said. It’s filled with Americana elements: a bucking bull sculpture, a leather American flag, a country music stage, a hat-fitting station with barber-style seats that look over the Strip, among others. The store has the brand’s largest product assortment of cowboy and riding boots, Western apparel and customized hats.
All that is meant to target the Western traveler, National Finals Rodeo fan or international tourist who may walk by.
“A lot of Western stores that you go to around the country will have boots out by size, and it’s kind of self-service,” Bradley said at a grand opening event Thursday. “This is really a service environment where someone will help you and help you choose what you want.”
Ariat chose the location in part for its access to pedestrians and its quick connection to the outdoors, she said. The store is on the second-floor pedestrian pathway between The Cosmopolitan and Aria hotel-casinos.
63 Las Vegas developer Brett Torino said the new complex, whose first tenants opened in April 2023, continues to field interested retailers for five empty storefronts. Current retailers include South Korean immersive media art exhibit Arte Museum, Agora Cosmetics, Welcome to Las Vegas gift shop, discount retailer Ross, the Museum of Illusions and a Fat Tuesdays.
Prospective retailers keep seeking out real estate that face customer traffic, Torino said.
He and partner Flag Luxury Group, which also owns land on the north Strip, are focusing on experiential retail — flagship stores and the attractions Museum of Illusions and Arte Museum — that lease tens of thousands of square feet at a time.
“That’s what we’re focused on is building over here because that really helps to bolster the long-term integrity of our project,” Torino said.
McKenna Ross is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact her at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.
