The historic Neiman Marcus store in Dallas on Friday got a last-minute reprieve from having to close its doors for good in a deal aimed to buy the city more time to “reimagine” a new future for the retailer’s landmark building.
City officials and Neiman Marcus owner Saks Global announced on Friday that the department store will remain open until the end of the year — following a bizarre beef over the lease that the parent company had claimed was behind its decision to shutter the location this coming Monday, as The Post exclusively reported.
The feud over the lease centered around a sliver of the property — which houses the original store – under the down escalator of the nine-story building that was controlled by another landlord.
The landlord, Slaughter Partners, agreed to “donate” the ground lease to the city in a deal brokered by a consortium of Dallas business groups earlier this month.
The heated feud included accusations that Saks Global lied about its stated reason for closing the beloved department store and of unfairly taking a portrait of the store’s founder, Stanley Marcus, back to its New York City headquarters.
The about-face comes after a group of Saks Global executives, including executive chairman Richard Baker, met with Dallas officials on March 24 to hammer out a path forward..
The historic retail icon is considered an anchor of the downtown area, which city officials are looking to revive.
Terms of the deal, including any tax incentives the city may have offered, to keep the store open were not announced.
The short-term deal will give city officials and Saks Global more time to discuss potential concepts for the space, including a “luxury retail experience, a curated art exhibition, and a fashion and event center,” according to the statement.
The proposals also include “an incubator for fashion design and manufacturing in Downtown Dallas.”
“We are excited that Saks Global has decided to keep Neiman Marcus open downtown, as we explore the opportunity to unlock the potential to transform downtown into an international beacon and economic engine for fashion — just as the Neiman Marcus founders intended when they opened the store more than 100 years ago,” Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said in a statement.
“We look forward to exploring what‘s on the horizon and are committed to continuing our conversations with the Saks Global team.”
The agreement keeps workers at Neiman Marcus and its popular Zodiac Room restaurant employed through the end of they year, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Store employees learned that their jobs were saved – at least temporarily – Friday morning at a store-wide meeting, sources told The Post.
“As we explore opportunities for the Downtown store, along with a planned renovation at the [nearby] NorthPark store, we will evaluate the opportunity to utilize both locations to serve different customer needs in the Dallas market,” Marc Metrick, chief executive of Saks Global, said in a statement.
The building is owned by Saks Global and several other landlords who own smaller portions of the ground lease. Slaughter Partners had terminated Saks Global’s lease, sparking the store closure announcement in February.
Saks Global, which acquired Neiman Marcus in a $2.65 billion deal in December, had said it had “not received any documentation regarding an agreement between Slaughter Partners and the City of Dallas, and how this new agreement would affect the property, its other owners and the store’s ability to operate.”
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