Historic department store buildings try on these new uses

Big department stores in major downtowns reflect a bygone era, a time when shoppers would don their Sunday best and plan to spend the day visiting buildings that often spanned an entire block. Many decades later, a number of those retail properties is still changing with the times.

After losing their luster, first to suburban shopping malls and later to the rise of e-commerce, some of these properties would be unrecognizable to those early shoppers while the fate of other real estate remains up in the air. Case in point: The parent company of Neiman Marcus said it hasn't decided what to do with the historic nine-story building at 1618 Main St. in downtown Dallas after it closes at the conclusion of this year's holiday shopping season.

That Dallas store has served as Neiman Marcus' flagship location for a century. The scheduled closing not only marks an end of an era for the iconic retailer, it would leave Dallas — the city where Neiman Marcus was founded in the early 1900s — without a downtown department store. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, providing some protections from being torn down as the news of its anticipated closing puts a spotlight on historic buildings.

While department stores in some cities have faced the wrecking ball, including J.L. Hudson in Detroit and Thalhimers in Richmond, Virginia, new uses for former department stores in downtown areas around the country include data centers, hotels and offices, bringing new life to a property's storied past.

Here are some examples of how property owners have repurposed large downtown department stores:

The original Dayton's high-end department store in downtown Minneapolis opened in 1902. The store was rebranded into a Marshall Field's and later a Macy's before it closed for good in 2017. The 14-story building's cast iron fixtures and terra cotta engravings on its exterior helped make way for developer 601W Cos. to transform the 1.2 million-square-foot building into a mixed-use development largely centered on offices that opened in 2020. The redevelopment also included some retail and dining space.

The redevelopment's opening during the pandemic didn't help with leasing the office space, with the U.S. office market being upended by remote and hybrid work options. CoStar's latest data clocks office occupancy at the former Dayton's at less than 50%.

The Dayton's building still has vacancy to fill, but CBRE's Larissa Bodine, who is overseeing office leasing at the space, said "leasing momentum has been very strong," with the building welcoming eight new tenants in the past year in deals totaling more than 100,000 square feet.

"The historic nature of the building, its unique space, its connection to Minneapolis history, and the extensive amenity offering have resonated with tenants," Bodine told CoStar News. "We anticipate the momentum will continue into 2025."

Neiman Marcus' planned closing in downtown Dallas follows other department stores that closed up shop decades earlier in the central business district. The former Sanger Brothers department store in downtown Dallas at 801 Main St. closed in the 1960s after a merger that created the Sanger-Harris chain.

Today, the former department store on Main Street serves as a community college campus. The city of Dallas and Dallas County sought to form a junior college to offer affordable higher education to residents in the mid-1960s. Officials acquired the former Sanger Brothers department store that totals 339,000 square feet of space spanning nine stories in the 1960s.

The property, known as the Dallas College El Centro Campus, was the first campus to open for Dallas County Community College District. The district now has seven campuses and served more than 131,525 students from fall 2023 to summer 2024.

The Sanger Brothers pioneered retailing in Texas and began offering free home delivery in Dallas in 1879, according to the Texas Historical Commission, more than a century before Amazon was founded. When the Sanger Brothers building on Main Street opened in 1910, it was considered very modern for Dallas at the time with Chicago School-style of commercial architecture, large windows and terra-cotta ornamentation, according to Preservation Dallas.

The last major department store in downtown Atlanta closed in 2003 when Macy's shut its doors at 200 Peachtree St. NW.

The historic retail building had opened its doors as a Davison's department store in 1891. Davison's became part of the Macy's brand after R.H. Macy and Co. acquired Davison's in 1925. By 1927, R.H. Macy built a six-story department store next to the Davison's building.

Part of the Peachtree Street building was converted into a data center in the early 2000s, and other sections were transformed into office space and an event venue. The data center sold to a Singapore investor in a 14-building portfolio deal totaling $750 million that closed in December 2017.

The former Maison Blanche department store was once housed in what is now The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans hotel at 921 Canal St. in New Orleans. The store, built between 1906 and 1909, was the largest historic commercial building in the city when it opened in the Canal Street Historic District.

Maison Blanche, meaning 'White House' in French, was known as a New Orleans' institution from 1897 to 1998, according to the city's history on the historic district. The retailer hosted global fashion shows and promotions. Dillard's bought the Maison Blanche retail chain in the 1990s. The New Orleans store closed after the acquisition.

The building developed by Maison Blanche was designed with a heavily ornate Beaux-Arts architecture that includes decorative flourishes and elegant white brickwork. The architecture seems to have helped its revival after the store's closure in 2000 and the 13-story building reopened as a Ritz-Carlton hotel.

The Ritz-Carlton hotel with 528 rooms sold to Gencom in March, adding a premium property to the investment group's portfolio. The property includes the Maison Orleans Club Level that underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation in 2024. The Maison Orleans Club Level comprises guest rooms, suites and a club lounge with its own secret entrance separate from the Ritz-Carlton hotel.

The Joseph Horne Co., known as Horne's department store in Pittsburgh, was considered an institution in the city, having been one of the nation's oldest retailers that was founded in 1849.

The department store opened its flagship location on Penn Avenue Place at what is now 501 Penn Ave. in Pittsburgh in 1879. Horne's closed in 1994 after nearly 150 years of retail operations. The store was rebranded into a Marshall Field's and later a Macy's before it closed its doors in 2017.

The historic building has since been transformed into a medical office building owned by Healthcare Trust of America. The eight-story building's assessment took a big hit recently, according to local media reports. The property's assessment declined 37.4% to $30.5 million for the 2025 tax year.