Neiman Marcus Luxury Department Store Opens at Roosevelt Field Mall

Luxury department store chain Neiman Marcus on Friday finally opened its first store on Long Island.

Dozens of people lined up outside minutes before the opening of the 106,000-square-foot, two-floor store at Roosevelt Field mall on Friday morning. Shoppers streamed in through the store’s five entrances, where they were greeted with claps from store associates.

The Neiman Marcus store is the capstone of a $200 million expansion and renovation of the Garden City mall begun 2 1⁄2 years ago by mall owner Simon Property Group of Indianapolis. The store is located at the end of Roosevelt Field’s new luxury wing, which houses more than 20 high-end stores including Tory Burch and Kate Spade New York. There are still three vacancies.

The three-level Roosevelt Field is the largest enclosed mall on Long Island, encompassing 2.2 million square feet with more than 270 stores. Its stores attract an estimated 22 million shopper visits a year. The average household income for Roosevelt Field shoppers is $113,486 annually with a median age of 41.3, according to Simon. The national median household income is $53,046, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Source: Channing Hargrove, New York Racked

Here’s the floor-by-floor breakdown: The first floor consists of cosmetics and fragrances, private spa rooms (where complimentary facials take place with brand specialists), designer handbags, a shoe salon where shoppers will have the option to customize Manolo Blahniks, designer jewelry and a precious jewels salon featuring estate jewelry, and the men’s store, where one of the store’s most expensive items hangs, a $120,000 blue crocodile Stefano Ricci jacket. The second floor is home to its couture, designer sportswear, evening dresses, intimates, and Cusp departments, playing up the sculptural design elements.

In a nod to Bergdorf Goodman’s success with modernity and its millennial clientele (remember, Neiman’s is Bergdorf’s parent company), Neiman Marcus will provide charging kiosks called ChargeItSpot, where shoppers can lock their phones up to charge as they shop.

And just steps outside of two different fitting rooms on the second floor, customers can use the “memory mirror” to capture a 360-degree view of the looks they’re trying on and compare outfits side-by-side, with the option to share the images via email or social media. Sales associates will be equipped with iPhones loaded with various lookbooks and provide access to the retailer’s website, should a shopper covet an item that’s not stocked.

Source: Phil Wahba, Fortune 

“There is no question our customer and the next generation want both experiences,” [Neiman Marcus President and CEO Karen Katz] says in an interview with Fortune. “They want the two channels to be completely interactive.”

So, the Neiman in Garden City, Long Island, the retailer’s first new department store since 2012, is pulling out all the stops. At 106,000 square feet, the two-level emporium is smaller than the average Neiman. But the location features a ton of natural light (something Neiman admits some of its stores lack), 37 works by local artists, and prominent tech.

In addition to mainstays like WiFi and iPhone-equipped sales staff (that are used for “clienteling,” like texting a photo of a new item the salesperson thinks might be of interest, the modern day version of the little black book), the Neiman store will have phone charging stations and memory mirrors by MemoMi. Such mirrors can capture an image and video of everything a customer tries on so she can see outfits side by side and ask friends off site for their opinions.

The 2,100-panel façade of the store, part of a new luxury wing built by Simon that also showcases a Tory Burch boutique, is meant to evoke the butterflies Neiman often uses in its imagery. The store will feature boutiques for brands like Tom Ford and Céline.

Neiman knows its stores have to be more special than ever to cut it with shoppers. After all, there is a Nordstrom and a Bloomingdale’s (a unit of Macy’s) at Roosevelt Field for shoppers who want high end if not quite luxury. (Neiman finished a massive renovation of its Michigan Avenue store in Chicago last year and is doing the same at its stores in Palo Alto, Dallas, and Beverly Hills.)

“We remain very enthusiastic for our plans for the New York metro area,” Katz says.