Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store
21st century
### 21st century

#### 2000s and 2010s

[thumb\|Decorated during Christmas](/wiki/File:Saks_entrance%2C_Christmas_decor.jpg "Saks entrance, Christmas decor.jpg")
Starting in the late 1990s, Saks Fifth Avenue extensively renovated its flagship. Saks Fifth Avenue completed the $125 million renovation of the flagship store in 2003\. A year later, Saks' new CEO Fred Wilson announced plans to undo much of the renovation and spend $150 million to further remodel the flagship. In August 2007, the [United States Postal Service](/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service "United States Postal Service") began an experimental program selling the "plus" [ZIP Code](/wiki/ZIP_Code "ZIP Code") extension to businesses. The first company to do so was Saks Fifth Avenue, which received the ZIP Code of 10022\-7463 ("SHOE") for the flagship's eighth\-floor shoe department. The building's eighth floor thus became the first instance in the United States in which an individual story of a building had its own ZIP Code. This coincided with the expansion of the shoe department, which had moved from the fourth floor and doubled in size to .

As of 2013, the New York flagship store's real estate value was estimated between $800 million and over $1 billion. At the time, the flagship generated around 20% of Saks' annual sales, valued at $620 million. [Hudson's Bay Company](/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company "Hudson's Bay Company"), which took over the Saks Fifth Avenue chain in 2013, took out a loan the following year. The loan gave the Fifth Avenue store a [book value](/wiki/Book_value "Book value") of $3\.7 billion, more than the $2\.9 billion the company had paid for the entire chain. In 2015, Saks began a $250 million, three\-year restoration of the flagship store. The company president desired reinventing the flagship, opening up its floors and closing its Cafe SFA to create a new eatery, the Parisian\-style L'Avenue. Saks planned a spiral staircase around a glass elevator, linking its first and second floors. It would move around departments and convert some back\-room space to retail space. The main floor, which was renovated to contain a handbag department, was completed in August 2019\. The value of the building was recorded at $1\.6 billion in 2019, amid a general decline in the retail sector.

#### 2020s to present

A department for children opened in March 2020, the first in the flagship store's history. Additional work was to be completed in 2021, including a men's shoes department and a basement jewelry section. In August 2021, workspace company [WeWork](/wiki/WeWork "WeWork") announced it would open a location on the Saks flagship's 10th floor. The coworking firm Convene operated space there for nearly two years beginning in September 2021\. After New York state officials announced in April 2022 that they would issue three [casino](/wiki/Casino "Casino") licenses in [Downstate New York](/wiki/Downstate_New_York "Downstate New York"), Hudson's Bay Company proposed constructing a casino on the top three stories of the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store. The womenswear company [Skims](/wiki/Skims "Skims") opened a shop on the flagship's fifth floor in May 2023, and a video studio opened on the tenth floor that October.

In 2024, Cohen Brothers Realty submitted documents to the [New York City Department of City Planning](/wiki/New_York_City_Department_of_City_Planning "New York City Department of City Planning"), indicating that they wanted to convert 623 Fifth Avenue's office space to apartments, since the floor area of the tower was too small for many modern tenants. The lowest ten stories of the tower would continue to be part of the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship, while the 11th and higher floors were to become 172 apartments, each with an average area of about .


What is the book value of the flagship store according to the loan in 2014?