Miracle Mile Shops plans escalator to shield customers

At a price of about $1 million, the management at Miracle Mile Shops hopes to shield its customers from the proliferation of street solicitors and entertainers.

The owner of the mall inside the Planet Hollywood Resort received Clark County Commission approval Wednesday to build an escalator on the north side of the pedestrian bridge that crosses Las Vegas Boulevard from The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas to Planet Hollywood Resort's south side. The work on the $1 million project is expected to be completed by spring.

The only escalator now is on the bridge's south side. This has created a traffic bottleneck that attracts street performers and the men who click the cards they hand out for gentlemen's clubs.

But Russ Joyner, the Miracle Mile president and general manager, said the new escalator will hit the ground on private property, the plaza in front of Planet Hollywood Resort, instead of public sidewalk. This opens the way for mall management to police the solicitors, who have drawn increasing complaints from other Strip resort owners.

Although Caesars Entertainment Corp. owns Planet Hollywood Resort, the New York-based investment group Boulevard Invest LLC owns the mall and will pay for the new escalator.