Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/62026
NEWS MAKERS Las Vegas winnings DAVID EDELSTEIN GAMBLED SUCCESSFULLY ON MIRACLE MILE SHOPS By Ben Johnson W 240 SCT / MAY 2012 HEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, some do answer, and David Edelstein is among those. For 20-plus years Edelstein traveled annually to Las Vegas for ICSC's RECon convention, and he came to regard Sin City as "one of the great real estate locations anywhere in the world." Edelstein, who is president of TriStar Capital, a New York City–based real estate investment firm, watched the 475,000-square-foot Desert Passage go up in 1999–2000. "Being in the real estate busi- ness and attending ICSC religiously every year, I thought the Desert Passage was a home-run loca- tion, and if it ever became available, it would be a tremendous opportunity." It did become available. And it has paid off hand- somely for Edelstein. Today, years after a major reposi- tioning, the renamed Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hol- lywood Resort & Casino is host to some 80,000 visits daily, and annual sales run to about $825 per square foot, according to company officials. Winning big in Las Vegas in this way is a far cry, to be sure, from driving a taxi in Edelstein's native New York City, but that is exactly what he did on most nights in the late 1970s. Then, in 1981, a $15,000 loan enabled Edelstein to buy his first apartment building. In just a few years, he had developed residential and retail properties throughout the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Queens. Then came the recession of the early 1990s. "I lost everything when everybody was going bust," said Edelstein. Fortune soon smiled on him again, though, when he met Steven Roth, chairman of Vornado Realty Trust. "I had a property I wanted to develop on Central Park West at 63rd Street, and I befriended him and we did a couple of small deals together," said Edelstein. "That was a turning point — I survived the down-