Strip retail center project moves closer to completion

The steel frame of a new retail complex on the Strip has taken shape, and the developer says tenants are set to fill the building as tourism bounces back from the pandemic.

Standing atop the Project63 structure, two ironworkers connected the final steel beam for the four-story project at the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue, after a crane hoisted it up to them Tuesday morning.

The “topping-off” ceremony — held exactly one year after the developers’ purchase of the site was announced — was attended by dozens of people in hard hats and neon construction vests. It also drew a small crowd of onlookers from a nearby pedestrian bridge.

Developer Brett Torino, who said the complex features 2,200 tons of steel, expects the first wave of retail space to be completed in October, with the remaining batch finished in February 2023.

He declined to name incoming tenants but said the project is “pushing 80 percent” pre-leased.

Las Vegas’ famed casino corridor has no shortage of malls and other places to shop; Torino and his partners already own a retail complex across the street. But the developers say the project will offer retailers high visibility and draw customers from the masses of tourists walking around.

“It’s an ideal location,” said Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, president and chief operating officer of Flag Luxury Group, Torino’s partner on the venture.

Project63 sits in a busy area of Las Vegas Boulevard and is slated to feature a 6,000-square-foot LED billboard atop the structure. Moreover, people will walk along its second floor when passing between The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and luxury mall Shops at Crystals.

“Our business is exposure,” Torino said. “We’re out front; people can see it, they can touch it, they can feel it.”

He also noted that the recently announced Formula One race in Las Vegas, slated for 2023, calls for the drivers speeding down the Strip to make a left at Harmon, offering big visibility during the 50-lap Grand Prix.

“It doesn’t get any better than that,” he said.

MGM Resorts International and its partner in the sprawling CityCenter complex, government-owned holding company Dubai World, announced April 26, 2021 that they were selling a 2-acre parcel there to Torino and New York-based Flag Luxury for about $80 million.

The small site had been home to the never-finished, structurally flawed Harmon hotel tower, which was dismantled several years ago, and is across the intersection from Harmon Corner, a three-story retail complex that Torino and Flag Luxury developed about a decade ago.

Clark County commissioners approved plans for the new project in August.

According to county documents from last year, the project is expected to span 228,278 square feet, feature 21 leasable spaces, and include outdoor dining and drinking areas on the fourth floor.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.