Store Wars: New York City’s Department Stores Are Reimagining Themselves

Rising on Manhattan’s far West Side, New York City’s first Neiman Marcus, set to open in September 2018, will occupy 215,000 square feet in the new Hudson Yards, a $25 billion office and housing complex that claims to be the largest private real estate development in the U.S. The store will frame views of the Hudson River and the High Line, and whisk shoppers by elevator from an entrance on Tenth Avenue to a concierge on the fifth floor, where they can pick up items they have purchased online. Farther up at Columbus Circle, also on the West Side, Nordstrom is erecting a 363,000-square-foot store in part in Central Park Tower, a structure that aims to be the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere. With wiring for a full digital experience, the store will enable customers to use a smartphone app to send apparel to a fitting room without having to rifle through racks. A shopping suite dubbed the JWN Room (the initials of Nordstrom founder John W. Nordstrom), complete with lounge and bath, allows for privacy—and space for an entourage. “The bar gets raised in New York. We’ve got to go into it having a different point of view about what it takes to be successful,” says Pete Nordstrom, the company’s co-president, talking about its first flagship in the city. “To a lot of people, if you’re not in Manhattan, you don’t exist.” Read more at The Wall Street Journal.