MGM MGM Resorts International

By Austen Hufford 

MGM Resorts International and Dubai World's Infinity World Development Corp. will sell a Las Vegas luxury shopping center to mall operator Simon Property Group Inc. and Invesco Ltd. for about $1.1 billion, the latest payoff on a bet to remake the Las Vegas Strip.

The 324,000 -square-foot luxury shopping center, called The Shops at Crystals, is part of the giant CityCenter project which opened on the Las Vegas Strip in 2009, with hotels, condominium towers and the mall.

The $8.5 billion CityCenter project, which at the time was the largest privately funded construction project in U.S. history, faced a ballooning budget and construction problems and the huge investment lead MGM to hire bankruptcy attorneys after the real estate bubble burst.

The project eventually turned around and the co-owners each got a $200 million dividend last spring.

Crystals features luxury stores, including Louis Vuitton and Gucci, as well as a tram station. The companies said it has close to about 16,000 hotel rooms.

Las Vegas has also improved since the recession, marking a record number of visitors last year and they now spend more than half of their travel budgets on nongaming expenses.

MGM Resorts shares rose 3.4% and Invesco shares rose 1.2%, while Simon shares fell 0.4% in morning trading.

Last February, MGM said it was looking at ways to return value to the CityCenter owners "whether that be through sale of some parts of CityCenter or through dividends or through recapitalization."

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 18, 2016 12:01 ET (16:01 GMT)

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