During a career that spanned some six decades, Gordon developed some of the most successful and imaginative projects in the U.S. His charisma, determination and passion for retail real estate helped him turn vision into reality.

Though experiential retail is all the rage today, the Forum Shops was considered something of a gamble when Gordon’s firm teamed up with Melvin Simon & Associates (later Simon Property Group, usually called just Simon) to develop the project in the early 1990s. Some said it would never work. But Gordon was convinced that Las Vegas could become more than a gambling mecca, and he won over some leading restaurateurs and luxury retailers. Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck opened one of his first Spago restaurants outside California at the Forum Shops, in 1992.

Designed to evoke the grandeur of a marketplace at the height of the Roman Empire, the shopping center went on to become one of the most productive retail spaces in the world. It also played a major role in turning Las Vegas into an entertainment and dining destination.

Gordon dreamed up the idea for one of the center’s most striking interior details — a faux “sky” that brightens through the day and then dims to a soft glow in the evening — while in the shower one morning. Always determined to hire best-in-class talent, he sought out artists known for their cloud-painting abilities and flew them to Las Vegas to work on the project. They spent many hours on scaffolds painting cloud-dappled skies onto the center’s barrel-vaulted ceiling.

“He prided himself on being a visionary rather than a traditional, large-scale developer,” said Scott Gordon, one of Sheldon’s four children, who followed his father into the retail real estate business and worked with him for nearly 20 years at Gordon Group Holdings, successor firm to The Gordon Co.

A native of Chicago, Sheldon Gordon graduated from the University of Chicago in 1952 with a bachelor’s in philosophy. In 1955 he earned a law degree from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. After law school he worked with his father, Martin, a successful Chicago attorney, but soon decided that practicing law was not to his taste. In 1957 Gordon packed up and drove west to California with about $200 in his pocket. He planned to spend some time there recuperating from a stress-induced illness.

He landed a job as a broker with San Francisco’s Milton Meyer & Co., a leasing and development firm that would become a real estate powerhouse. There, Gordon discovered his passion for real estate. Within two years he was promoted to commercial department manager, a position he held until 1965. That year he moved to Los Angeles and went into business with E. Phillip Lyon, a broker turned shopping center developer. Gordon proved adept at thinking innovatively, in both overcoming project-related obstacles and attracting shoppers. To preserve an environmentally protected area at a site in Hawaii, he proposed building what would become Pearlridge Center in two sections — flanking the protected area and connecting the sections with the very first shopping center monorail system. Pearlridge opened in 1972, and that monorail became a tourist attraction. “That project got his creative juices flowing,” said Scott, who is president and founder of Los Angeles–based Gordon Retail Concepts.

At Vallco Fashion Park, which opened in 1976, Sheldon Gordon turned what had been an obstacle — an eight-lane highway — into an asset by spanning the road with a pedestrian bridge that included space leased to merchants. Gordon and Lyon were also involved in the revolutionary, eight-story Beverly Center, in partnership with The Taubman Co. Unable to construct underground parking on the site because of a subterranean oil field, Gordon and his partners got creative, putting up one of the very first malls built atop an above-ground parking garage. Beverly Center opened in 1982, and its tenants included the first Hard Rock Cafe in the U.S.

Gordon and Lyon were in partnership for nearly two decades. When Lyon retired in 1983, Gordon launched Gordon Co., also based in Los Angeles.

“Sheldon was a very creative guy,” said Robert S. Taubman, chairman, president and CEO of Taubman Centers. “He looked at challenges differently than others and was able to convince retailers, landowners and capital partners that his ideas would work.”

Gordon’s other revolutionary projects include what is now called the Westfield San Francisco Centre. When that mall opened, in 1991, it featured the first spiral escalator in the Western Hemisphere and the largest Nordstrom store at that time. The project also helped revitalize a once-blighted section of the city. In the late ’90s, Gordon was involved in one of New York City’s most innovative retail projects, transforming a vaulted hall within the base of the Queensboro Bridge (on the Manhattan side) into a shopping and dining complex called Bridgemarket. This featured a Food Emporium, some restaurants, a high-end furniture store and a landscaped plaza.

In 2015 Gordon built the first fashion outlet center affiliated with a casino, at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Connecticut. Other significant projects, also in Connecticut, include The Shops at Mohegan Sun and his final project, The Haven, a mixed-use development in West Haven, which continues under development, and which, when completed, will include a high-end outlet center, some restaurants, apartments and a hotel. Gordon worked with real estate investor Ty Miller on this project.

Gordon was passionate about his work, but he had plenty of other interests. In 1995 he and his wife, Christine, moved from Malibu, Calif., to the English countryside so that Gordon could indulge his passion for the equestrian life by joining the Duke of Beaufort’s Hunt, one of the oldest foxhunting packs in England.

Gordon and his wife enjoyed several years in Europe with their two daughters before returning to the U.S., in Greenwich, Conn. Not long after that, the family embarked on yet another adventure. Bringing along a teacher for their young children, the Gordons sailed around the world for over a year aboard a yacht. The couple eventually settled in North Palm Beach, Fla. “He loved golf, skiing, the arts and musicals” — and especially Broadway shows, recalled Scott, who adds that his father also maintained a youthful energy throughout his life.

Gordon served on many boards, including the oversight committee for the Walt Disney Concert Hall, in Los Angeles. He also served on the boards of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (during its conceptual development); the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich; and the Greenwich Academy preparatory school, among others.

Gordon is survived by his wife, Christine, and their children, Martine Elizabeth Gordon and Katherine Christine Gordon. He is also survived by his two sons from his first marriage, Scott and Craig.