DALLAS — Neiman Marcus will close its downtown Dallas department store, ending months of speculation and delivering another blow to the central business district landscape. The iconic store is set to shutter at the end of September as the company turns its focus on the NorthPark Center amid a bankruptcy process with Saks Global, which acquired Neiman Marcus at the end of 2024. The closure will ...

An exterior view of the Neiman Marcus flagship store in downtown Dallas.

Tom Fox/Dallas Morning News/TNS

DALLAS — Neiman Marcus will close its downtown Dallas department store, ending months of speculation and delivering another blow to the central business district landscape.

The iconic store is set to shutter at the end of September as the company turns its focus on the NorthPark Center amid a bankruptcy process with Saks Global, which acquired Neiman Marcus at the end of 2024. The closure will close the chapter on a multi-decade run for the shop that had acted as a fashion beacon for the region.

"It is not an easy decision, but it is a final decision," said Geoffroy van Raemdonck, CEO of Saks Global. "... The rationale is really we've looked at multiple criteria, but it's mostly the criteria of what are the customer preferences and where is demand, and what we see is that there's a shift in the retail map in Dallas."

Related: What to know about Neiman Marcus closing downtown Dallas store

The downtown Dallas store was a flagship property for Dallas-founded and headquartered Neiman Marcus until the chain was purchased by upscale competitor Saks Global in 2024. For more than a century, the building the epicenter of luxury retail in North Texas and welcomed some of the world's biggest names in fashion such as Christian Dior, Sophia Loren and Gloria Vanderbilt.

With the change, Neiman Marcus plans to infuse elements of the downtown store and its history into the NorthPark site, according to the company. This includes reimagining the Neiman Marcus Cafe into The Zodiac Room and celebrating other pieces of its history.

The downtown store was first set to close at the end of March in 2025 after weeks of back and forth between city and business officials and the company amid a lease dispute. Yet an 11th-hour announcement staved off the shuttering with the site set to be kept open through the holiday shopping at the end of last year — and then the lifeline was extended into 2026.

The NorthPark business does more than 10 times the sales of the downtown business, van Raemdonck said. And sales, despite the attention the store attracted last year, declined in 2025.

"It is a store that is not profitable, and so I think that (the) customer has decided where she or he wants to access the Neiman Marcus brand," van Raemdonck said.

The change came as Saks Global is navigating a bankruptcy process after filing Chapter 11 in January amid challenges with shifting tastes among consumers, mounting debt and ongoing headwinds in the retail industry. With the filing, van Raemdonck, who had led the company prior to the merger, took over as CEO.

The company, while looking to emerge from bankruptcy this month, already has made moves to streamline the company with closures of stores across the country, including off-price versions amid other efforts with effects on its corporate workforce and distribution centers, van Raemdonck said.

What happens next with the store, which has multiple lease-holders, isn't clear for now.

"We think it's a beautiful building, and we will work with everyone to make sure that it finds the right" situation, van Raemdonck said.

Van Raemdonck said he had met with the mayor, Eric Johnson, and his team in what was a "constructive" and "open-minded" discussion. At the time of the lifeline last year in March, there were thoughts about how the site could be reimagined, including an event center and an incubator.

"At the end of the day, we are a retail company that went through a financial restructuring to rebuild itself," Van Raemdonck said. "... For me, it's really important that we focus on the core of our business."

The company is in the process of confirming a long-term plan for the bridal salon but intends to service brides out of the NorthPark store with the closure of the downtown store.

The exit of Neiman Marcus, which is set for Sep. 30, comes at an already difficult time for the the city's downtown as key names in the community move on from the core.

On Monday, the Dallas Mavericks said they had chosen Valley View for an arena and entertainment district, smothering efforts to woo the project for downtown, potentially on the current site of City Hall.

Earlier this year, AT&T, one of the high-profile companies in North Texas, said it planned to move its global headquarters out of Dallas and land in Plano. AT&T's downtown site on Akard Street sits roughly two blocks from the Neiman Marcus store.

For affected Neiman Marcus employees, transfer opportunities to nearby Neiman Marcus locations will be offered where possible, and eligible colleagues who qualify will be offered appropriate separation packages, the company said.

The closure also will affect corporate workers who worked on some of the floors at the site, Van Raemdonck said.

"We are in the process of looking across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as to where would be the best place to have corporate offices," he said.

Van Raemdonck called the store a "special place" even as the focus turns to NorthPark.

The Dallas area remains an important market for the brand. He said he had an office there for about five years when he led the company.

"The love for Neiman Marcus is enormous," he said. We "want to continue to be involved in the community, and specifically in the community of Dallas, to cherish that relationship."

Saks Global acquired Neiman Marcus Group in a roughly $2.7 billion deal at the end of 2024. But the company ran into hard times that led to the bankruptcy filing in January.

The business suffered from a lack of liquidity, affecting its ability to pay vendors. But he's worked to right the course in the past roughly four and a half months.

"We are in a position where we have the inventory we ... need, and we can then start performing at the extent that we should be performing," he said

Neiman Marcus will be the biggest name under the company's three retailers when the company emerges from bankruptcy.

"We have real ambitions of being the premier destination," he said. "We went faster than I thought we would, and we took key deliberate decisions that are available during a financial restructuring, so I'm very optimistic."

He said the merger was a good move in the market.

"We are in a business where scale (matters), where innovation is required, and if you can do it on a larger set of banners, and then you have more ability to win, and for us winning is really delighting the customer," he said.