Toys ‘R’ Us went bankrupt nearly nine years ago, but in Las Vegas, a strip mall construction project has revealed a blast from the retail past.
The iconic multicolored Toys ‘R’ Us logo has been visible lately on the exterior of a building on Maryland Parkway near Flamingo Road that the toy-store chain vacated in 2017. The signage recently re-emerged during a still-ongoing project to transform its former building, in the Mission Center retail plaza, into an indoor car wash.
The front of the building at 4000 S. Maryland Parkway was demolished, revealing a long-hidden reminder of what was reportedly the biggest U.S. toy-store chain when it filed for chapter 11.
Alan Yousefzadeh, vice president of acquisitions and asset management with landlord Windmill Capital, said the logo’s reappearance “was definitely nostalgic.”
“It reminds you of how much history there is, even in a building like this,” he said.
Washing up to 440 cars per hour
Element Auto Wash is moving in, taking over the old Toys ‘R’ Us store and the vacant former TJ Maxx space next door.
Last September, the Clark County Building Department issued a commercial building permit, valued at $4 million, for tenant improvements for the new business, county records show.
The permit lists the square footage at 81,469.
Mike Bonanni, executive vice president of operations for Element Auto Wash, said that this is the company’s first location and that he hopes to open around the end of the year.
As he described it, the fully indoor car wash is designed to clean vehicles quickly and let customers and employees escape the elements, including Southern Nevada’s brutal heat.
Bonanni said the location will have two tunnels that, collectively, will be capable of washing up to 440 cars per hour. He also said his team liked the spot in Mission Center because of the building size and the heavy traffic nearby.
According to the company’s website, the facility will let customers get their cars washed, inside and out, in 15 minutes or less.
Located at a busy intersection, Mission Center is just up the street from UNLV and about 2 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip.
$5 billion of long-term debt
Toys ‘R’ Us had opened its store on Maryland Parkway by 1990, as seen in an advertisement back then in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Its store there went out of business in January 2017, according to Clark County business-license records.
Then, in September 2017, Toys ‘R’ Us filed for bankruptcy protection. At the time, it was the largest U.S. toy-store chain, Reuters reported.
When it announced its chapter 11 filing, the New Jersey-based retailer said that it had around 1,600 Toys ‘R’ Us and Babies ‘R’ Us stores worldwide and that the “vast majority” of those were profitable.
Still, it also said it would work to restructure its $5 billion of long-term debt – after a trio of firms teamed up to acquire the company in a $6.6 billion buyout more than a decade earlier.
Until the car wash came along, the former Toys ‘R’ Us store on Maryland Parkway had basically been empty since the retailer moved out, said Yousefzadeh, of Windmill Capital.
However, this area of the mall did have seasonal occupancy.
Spirit Halloween, the costume slinger that fills empty retail space nationwide around the holidays, operated from the future car-wash space, county records show.
Southern Nevada presence
Shoppers can still buy online from Toys ‘R’ Us, and the brand has not disappeared from American malls, either, including in the Las Vegas Valley.
New York-based WHP Global said in 2021 that it acquired a controlling stake in the retailer. Then, in 2022, Macy’s announced that it was bringing Toys ‘R’ Us into every Macy’s store in the U.S. that holiday season.
As seen on Macy’s website, Toys ‘R’ Us still operates nationwide inside the department store chain.
Locally, it has locations in Fashion Show Las Vegas, Meadows Mall, Downtown Summerlin, and the recently renamed Mershops Galleria at Sunset mall in Henderson.
It also has a footprint inside the Macy’s home store on Spring Mountain Road in Chinatown.
As seen recently, Toys ‘R’ Us occupies a small portion of the sales floor. It has Barbie dolls, Legos and other toys, with its mascot, Geoffrey the giraffe, sitting on a bench.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
