It took sixteen years before being able to push the doors of La Samaritaine again.

The famous store on rue de Rivoli in Paris will reopen to the public on June 19 after many adventures and a colossal project that will have cost 750 million euros, we learned from its owner the LVMH group , majority shareholder since 2001.

Closed in 2005 for safety reasons related to its dilapidation, La Samaritaine was to reopen in 2020 for its 150th anniversary.

The pandemic will only have been an additional incident on the path strewn with pitfalls that this site has known.

A new luxury hotel

LVMH had to wait until 2015 to see its building and renovation permit definitively validated.

Between 2012 and 2015, the work was in fact suspended by a series of appeals from heritage preservation associations, challenging in particular the creation of a contemporary glass facade, on the rue de Rivoli side.

La Samaritaine has been enriched with a luxury hotel Cheval Blanc, a brand also owned by LVMH, with 72 rooms and suites with a plunging view of the Seine, the reopening date of which has not been communicated.

The building also accommodates 15,000 m² of offices, a neighborhood crèche with 80 beds and 97 social housing units managed by France Habitat.

A building listed as a historic monument

Jewels of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, the four buildings, one of which is listed as a Historic Monument, have undergone a major restructuring which also had to respect and enhance the period elements: mosaics, enamels, glass roofs or still wrought iron railing. The store will occupy 20,000 m², against some 30,000 m² at the time of its closure, "spaces magnified by the Sanaa cabinet but also Hubert de Malherbe, Ciguë or Yabu Pushelberg", according to a press release. It will be managed by DFS, a selective distribution group also owned by LVMH, with a selection of some 600 luxury brands combining fashion, lifestyle and gastronomy.

In 2005, when it closed - initially for work to last six years - La Samaritaine employed 734 employees, almost all of whom were reclassified or benefited from measures provided for by the Employment Protection Plan (PSE).

When announcing the reopening in 2019, LVMH had indicated that "in total, more than 1,500 jobs will be created", including 800 for the department store, and that "with the offices, more than 2,400 direct jobs will be perpetuated on the site ".

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  • Stores

  • LVMH

  • Monument

  • Paris