Saks Global once again plans to shut down the historic Neiman Marcus store that spans an entire block in downtown Dallas, a move it has said it would do since buying its luxury rival — before backtracking after a high-profile public outcry.
The store will close at the end of September, Saks Global said on Tuesday, marking the end of an era for the Neiman Marcus brand that was founded in the city more than a century ago.
Neiman Marcus' exit will leave downtown Dallas without a department store for the first time in 119 years. Saks acquired Neiman Marcus in a deal with an enterprise value of $2.7 billion in December 2024 with funds from tech giants Amazon and Salesforce among its minority investors.
Shortly after the deal closed, Neiman Marcus' new parent said the downtown Dallas flagship store would shut down in March 2025 because of a lease dispute. But the city of Dallas and a group of local business leaders made efforts to keep the luxury retailer in the central business district by eliminating issues tied to a 99-year ground lease underneath the store.
And it worked: Saks agreed to keep the store open through the end of the 2025 holiday season — and the location kept operating well into the spring. The additional time was expected to let Saks officials explore a potential reimagination of the historic store. Now, it looks like that exploration has ended in the decision to close.
"After a thorough evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to close the Neiman Marcus downtown Dallas store on September 30, 2026, and concentrate our resources where our customers prefer to shop," a Saks Global spokesperson said in a statement emailed to CoStar News.
New York-based Saks Global, parent of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, is investing $100 million into another Neiman Marcus store in Dallas at NorthPark mall. Neiman Marcus has been an anchor tenant at NorthPark since the enclosed mall opened in 1965.
Meanwhile, the Saks spokesperson said that "Dallas remains an incredibly important market for the Neiman Marcus brand, and our customers in the city and across the suburbs consistently choose to shop at our NorthPark location." Saks plans to "infuse elements celebrating the downtown store's rich history" at the store at NorthPark mall.
“As we continue to take steps to secure a strong future for Neiman Marcus, our optimized store footprint is aimed at aligning our go-forward presence with customer demand and preferences," the spokesperson added.
Shortly after Saks acquired Neiman Marcus, it vacated the luxury retailer's former Dallas headquarters at Cityplace Tower, leaving about 85,000 square feet of newly renovated space on the market. Cityplace Tower's landlord confirmed to CoStar News the office space is still available for lease.
Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January to restructure and eliminate some of its debt and has been slashing its brick-and-mortar fleet ever since. Saks Global recently listed some of its New York City office space on the sublease market as the company prepares to exit bankruptcy by the end of the summer.
'On the rise'
The departure of Neiman Marcus is expected to add to the empty storefronts in downtown Dallas that have been "steadily on the rise" in recent years, said Cody Gibbs, CoStar's director of market analytics overseeing retail space in the Dallas-Fort Worth region.
"At the last low point coming out of 2020, overall [vacancy] rates were sub-6%" in downtown Dallas, Gibbs said. "Now, they have more than doubled, with recent readings coming in at 16%."
Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said in a statement the city was "disappointed" in Saks Global's decision to close the historic Neiman Marcus store that "has been a cornerstone of our central business district for more than century." Tolbert said city leaders had "open conversations" with the retailer's leaders for two years as they evaluated the future of the property.
"Those discussions reflected our shared recognition of the store's importance to Dallas," she said. "While this decision is not the outcome we worked toward, the city will continue to partner with Saks Global as they invest in the transformation of the NorthPark store."
Downtown Dallas has been having a rough few months, with the NBA's Dallas Mavericks deciding to forgo downtown Dallas for a new arena development at a big site in North Dallas. And Fifth Third announced plans for Comerica to exit its former headquarters in the central business district, while AT&T is vacating its longtime downtown Dallas campus for new construction in a northern suburb.
Gibbs said those announcements could be a source of "long-standing pressure" on real estate for years to come in the greater downtown Dallas area.
Updated June 3 to include comment from the city of Dallas.