Area15 in Las Vegas to feature Todd English, zip line and airplane

In February, Area15 developers announced that their new experiential retail concept would be home to Meow Wolf, VR experiences and unique dining.

By the time of its grand opening in several months, Area15 will also feature a zip line that suspends riders from the ceiling, an airplane fuselage and the Las Vegas return of celebrity chef Todd English.

“We’ve added more stuff,” CEO Winston Fisher says. “And frankly, just from what we talked about originally, it’s just gotten better.”

The middle corridor of the 200,000-square foot confluence of art and technology will be home to a 12-foot-tall 3D skull, an art car by Las Vegas artist Henry Chang, and a bar built around an LED-illuminated tree called Oddwood. At the rear of the corridor will be English’s food hall.

“It’s one unified food experience with all different foods and styles,” says Chief Creative Officer Michael Beneville. “He’s still working on it; it will be incredible.”

The food hall will mark the four-time James Beard Award winner’s first Las Vegas concept since he left the city following the closure of Olives at Bellagio and the conversion of his Todd English P.U.B at The Shops at Crystals to The Pub.

“This partnership with Area15 enables me to create a new, theatrical dining experience that will embody the aesthetic of the entire complex,” English says in a news release. “It’s energizing to be part of a project defined by creativity and a sense of the unexpected.”

His yet-to-be-named food hall will be joined by Rocket Fizz Soda Pop & Candy Shop and the first West Coast location for ice cream store Emack and Bolio’s.

Announced retail concepts include VR experience Nomadic, ax-throwing venue Dueling Axes and two-story bar arcade Emporium.

Area15’s two entrances are shaped like rounded portals and will transport visitors out of the blinding summer sun and into the complex with lights, projections and sculptures that move, flash and spin.

While Area15 was originally slated to open this month, it is now expected to open for private events in February and to the public in May or June.

Private events will be available in the indoor event space, the Lightbox, which allows for 360-degree light projection.

“We can make it look like a nice, regular banquet room,” says Fisher. “Then after 10 or 30 minutes, when people are wondering why they’re there, we’ll make the walls melt off and put up something else.”

One reason for the delay in opening is the inclusion of a glider zip line system that will allow riders to race each other as they soar over the middle section of Area15, called The Spine.

“That system was not in the original plan,” Fisher says. “We’ve had to reinforce the ceiling to do some of those things. We needed a lot more steel.”

Other new developments will include accessible phone chargers, integrated augmented reality experiences and the fuselage of a C-47 airplane that Fisher found online.

“It’s a creative process and we’re inventing something,” Beneville says. “And inventing things just means that you get ideas right in the middle of them that you think would make it better. And then you just want to make those happen.”

Contact Janna Karel at jkarel@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jannainprogress on Twitter.