First tenants announced for new Strip retail, entertainment center

Some well-known retailers are the first to sign on to BLVD, a large retail, dining and entertainment center expected to open on the Strip in 2025.

Adidas, Puma and H&M are taking space at BLVD, which took a big step forward in its construction on Thursday.

The developers behind the 400,000-square-foot BLVD, Gindi Capital and the Cherng Family Trust, held a topping off ceremony where the last metal beam was placed on the project although construction will continue until August 2024. Tenants should be able to open to the public in early 2025, a spokesperson for BLVD said.

Michael Hirschfeld, vice chairman of JLL, who is overseeing leasing operations for the project, said there’s been no difficulty in getting brands interested in leasing.

“Vegas as a market, basically, the population on the Strip changes every 3½ days,” he said. “And it’s a population that’s looking for things to do.”

Between 35 million and 38 million people walk by the BLVD site — on the Strip, between Harmon and Tropicana avenues — over the course of a year, according to studies commissioned by JLL.

First tenants

Adidas will occupy 25,000 square feet at BLVD while Puma and H&M both took 20,000 square feet, according to JLL.

The first two floors of BLVD will focus on retail and experiential spaces while the top level will be a 110,000-square-foot dining terrace with up to a dozen restaurants and a public event space which overlooks the Strip.

The hope for BLVD is that it can make high-end retail and dining easily accessible to pedestrians and other visitors to Las Vegas, said Vincent Tatum, president of Grand Canyon Development Partners, the development management firm overseeing the project.

“A lot of times there’s a belief that people who are visiting from out of town feel like some of the high-end, cultural luxury-type products are just something that’s out of their means,” he said. “This gives you an opportunity to be more approachable, but also still have an amazing experience.”

Progress for BLVD has been steady as Gindi Capital bought the roughly 10-acre site in 2019 for $172 million and demolished the old Hawaiian Marketplace retail center that used to occupy the land in April.

Location is key

Leasing is being handled differently at BLVD, as tenants are charged based on the linear feet they have on Las Vegas Boulevard rather than a dollar-per-square-foot rate, Hirschfeld said. The current asking price is $60,000 per linear foot.

Hirschfeld said many companies are interested in the project and there are hopes BLVD can attract brands that don’t have retail operations in the United States yet.

Additionally, hopes are high since the project is on the south side of the Strip, which seen a lot of development in recent years.

“So much money, having been invested here, CityCenter, the (T-Mobile) arena, the football stadium, the baseball stadium, this has become the epicenter (of the Strip),” Hirschfeld said.

More development is set to come as the 43-story casino-resort backed by billionaire Tilman Fertitta is on the same block as BLVD and is still moving forward, said Clark County Commissioner James Gibson, who attended the topping-off ceremony.

“Not far from here, there’s going to be a hotel that is going to feed lots of people into this facility,” Gibson said. “We want to get back to a time when there are a couple of hundred thousand people visiting Las Vegas at one time and two-thirds of them are on Las Vegas Boulevard between about 8 o’clock at night and 1 in the morning. That’s Las Vegas, that’s the Las Vegas we know.”

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.