Flights from New York to Las Vegas the weekend of the International Convention of Shopping Centers’ annual expo can seem like a clubhouse meeting of the industry’s retail players. In comparison, the pool parties that dot Sin City the days before the show kicks off are more like trips to the beach.
Some of the industry’s biggest names let their hair down Sunday as they soaked up the sun and more than a few libations at the various pool parties dotting the strip the day before they suited up for meetings at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The weather was an unseasonably mild mid-70s over the weekend – locals said the city usually sees those temperatures in March and by this time of year the thermometer hits the 90s – so fears of sweltering heat were assuaged.
It was “swimming attire required” at the Encore Beach Club on the strip, where developers Slate Property Group and Adam America Real Estate as well as title insurance firm TitleVest hosted sun-tanned soirees.
Lines to enter the club, a big tourist hotspot, stretched back through the hotel’s doors and into the lobby – the kind of foot traffic that makes brokers salivate.
Next door, Winick Realty Group hosted guests at the decidedly more continental European pool at the Wynn Las Vegas where prudish American mores regarding the natural body, while unenforced, were largely observed.
Todd Bassen of Invesco Real Estate, who is leaving the investment firm to head up real estate at WeWork, was in attendance, as was retail mogul Jeff Sutton and Eastern Consolidated’s Adelaide Polsinelli.
Jeff Winick held court in one of three cabanas the brokerage reserved deep within the hotel’s somewhat labyrinthine system of pools connected by meandering, landscaped paths. Guests wove their way in and out of the Winick party and one hosted next door by the title insurance firm First American.
Cushman & Wakefield was represented by Robert Shapiro, Paul Massey and Bob Knakal along with his wife, Cynthia. Jared Epstein and Bobby Cayre of Aurora Capital Associates milled about, as did Michael Cayre of Midtown Equities and Alex Adjmi of A&H Acquisitions.