LAS VEGAS (AP) - Harrah's Entertainment Inc. says it plans to create an entertainment district with nearly two dozen bars and restaurants on the east side of the city's strip.
Called "Project Link" by company officials, the plan calls for about 20 restaurants and bars to be built along a winding corridor between the company's O'Sheas and Flamingo casinos.
The project is an effort to create the kind of eclectic, open entertainment district that can be found in other cities such as New Orleans and Memphis.
Greg Miller, Harrah's senior vice president of resort development, told the Las Vegas Sun he spent months studying pedestrian environments across the country, analyzing strip traffic patterns and surveying customers.
"Another casino didn't make a lot of sense," said Miller, who developed theme parks for Universal Studios before joining Harrah's five years ago. "It's tough to make that math work."
The company declined to discuss the project's cost.
The project calls for building a pedestrian corridor of multistory, tenant-occupied buildings stretching back at least a block to the monorail line behind the properties.
At the end of the walkway, Harrah's wants to build a Ferris wheel similar to the London Eye and the Singapore Flyer.
The wheel would tower about 600 feet, offering sweeping views, plush interiors and a slow ride.
Analysts said the concept makes sense in the current economic climate.
"The idea of building big resorts is dead for now," said Dennis Forst, a stock analyst with KeyBanc Capital Markets. "Investors want to know how they're going to pay down debt and shore up their balance sheet. They don't want to hear about spending a billion dollars on a new venture."
Jeff Voyles, an associate professor of casino management at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and a partner with gaming consulting company Globalysis, said Las Vegas has long needed a Strip-fronting dining district like the one Harrah's is proposing, but gaming companies have been reluctant to invest in untried concepts.
"The whole concept of Vegas, for a long time, was to drive people into the casino," Voyles said. "There's a tremendous amount of foot traffic in front of the Harrah's properties. This is just like getting people to stay longer at your blackjack game if you can get people to stay a little longer in your bars, you get them to buy a couple more drinks."