Dive Brief:
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Dallas business leaders and city officials gathered at the downtown Neiman Marcus flagship Tuesday morning to urge Saks Global and a property landlord to work out their differences in order keep the iconic store open.
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A decade of talks between Neiman Marcus and the owner of one of several smaller parcels of land beneath the sprawling location had broken down, which Saks Global said last week has forced it to close the location.
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Neiman Marcus Group owns the building and a majority of the land, per Dallas Country records. Saks Global didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the opportunity to continue negotiations.
Dive Insight:
There are several tracts of land with different owners underneath the Neiman Marcus flagship in Dallas, and only one appears to be holding out.
Having a patchwork of lessors under such a major piece of property is not unusual, and neither is the potential for dispute, according to Shawn Todd, founder and chairman of commercial real estate firm Todd Interests, who spoke at the event Tuesday. In fact, more rare is that so many of the lessors have reached agreements with Neiman Marcus, he said.
“Downtown Dallas is riddled with long-term ground leases under buildings,” he said. “It's hard to herd all the cats and all the cattle at one point in time, so I don't want to be presumptuous as to what's happening under this one city block building. But evidently, there are multiple ground lessors, and that's not unusual in any real estate situation. What appears to be unusual in this one is that all of these ground lessors, for the most part, have gotten together and said, ‘We want to keep Neiman Marcus.’”
Todd joined several business and government leaders to urge a compromise, including Jennifer Scripps, president and CEO of Downtown Dallas, a stewardship organization; Dallas City Council member Paul Ridley; City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert; and Linda McMahon, CEO of the Dallas Economic Development Corporation.
“We believe that it's crucial for Neiman Marcus to remain in this space and continue to serve as a cornerstone of our city's identity and a catalyst for ongoing growth,” Tolbert said. “Now, I happen to be the city manager of Dallas, but I'm not just standing here and proclaiming that this is something that the city can do alone. ... The Marcus family, for generations, has given so much to the city. And in that spirit, we are very proud to have some of our finest business leaders once again stepping up to do what is best for Dallas.”
A few days ago, HBC chief Richard Baker and Saks Global CEO Marc Metrick were in Dallas, and, when they left, took with them a portrait of a member of the founding Marcus family, according to Todd. The two are now invited back to meet with the ground lessors next week.
“And I'm asking him to put on his plane that portrait of Mr. Marcus, because I want to put it right here — right here —so that it can stand for another 117 years, just like this building has been standing,” he said. “Neiman Marcus was built with Texas money and Texas grit. We all know that Texans are fighters. We won our sovereignty. We became part of a great Republic of Texas. Texans are faithful, we're faithful to a fault. We have a very long memory. But the good news for Mr. Baker is that we're all here today to solve a problem. Texans are problem solvers.”
