La Samaritaine (Paris): what's happening?
 

How goes the re-development of La Samaritaine? What's the timeline for completion and what will it be/look like when all is said and done?

We're glad we had the opportunity to shop in the store before its closure and we're curious about its rebirth.

Here is a quite extensive video (in French) which shows the whole project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiZvolkxcj8

Count at least another 3 years before completion.

I heard the reopening was planned for 2014 but only part of the building will be retail space, ie it will be nothing like the old and interesting store.

I'm following the project for work and it will mainly be a luxury hotel. I got a peek in last October and they had gutted a lot of the main floor already.

Thanks for that video, kerouac. Some great historic footage near the beginning.

If I understood it correctly, they are preserving the historic details in most of the building but putting on a new glass facade along the rue de Rivoli.

No, they are preserving some of the façades on rue de l'Arbre Sec for the social housing. On the rue de Rivoli side, those 4 merged buildings will be demolished.

Anyway, I was hunting around and saw that the project was delayed again in February 2013 when some associations filed a new lawsuit against the project. Once the courts finally allow the project to continue, construction is scheduled to take 27 months. The lawsuit is against the demolition of the rue de Rivoli buildings because it will "damage the architectural harmony of the neighborhood around the Louvre."

So the glass facade will be on a building they will put up in place of the demolished ones?

Thanks all. I caught the tail end of a news broadcast about it last night on a French news channel (can't recall if it was a "French French" news clip or from one of the French language Swiss channels). Will the hotel part still be Cheval Blanc?

http://www.edouardfrancois.com/fr/pr.../#.UZosuvZBumQ

I cling to the faint hope the marvellous rooftop scenic viewing promenade will somehow be revived. Finding its narrow, poorly marked access was part of the fun, as if sharing a secret with Parisien insiders. Up on the roof, indeed, just like Carole King sang about Manhattan.

Public access of the rooftop terrace is part of the project.