The long-vacant Neiman Marcus building on Worth Avenue is finally getting new life. The Palm Beach Town Council has signed off on plans to convert the three-story, 48,578-square-foot property at 151 Worth Ave. into a mixed-use destination anchored by a 165-seat restaurant from celebrated restaurateur Stephen Starr, with boutique retail shops filling out the first two floors.
The project would transform the former single-tenant department store, which has sat empty since September 2020, into a multi-tenant commercial property, according to WPEC. The restaurant, tentatively named Room Service, would occupy the second floor as a neighborhood steakhouse featuring comfort-food options like lobster mac and cheese and Peking duck, per Palm Beach Now. The outlet notes the proposal would put Starr's concept directly on Palm Beach island, with a target opening as early as late 2027.
The Town Council granted conditional approval for the restaurant and its requested zoning relief on September 9, along with a variance for three parking spaces, the station's report indicates. The approved layout includes 126 indoor dining seats, seven bar seats, and 32 outdoor balcony seats facing Worth Avenue — down from an earlier plan for 48 outdoor seats, even as the outdoor dining footprint itself grew from 1,091 to 1,495 square feet. A previously proposed first-floor tea and coffee station has been dropped from the plans, per the same account.
A Bigger Kitchen Behind the Scenes
Much of the project's complexity comes from what diners won't see. The plans call for a 1,350-square-foot third-floor addition dedicated to kitchen, storage, and employee space — not open to diners — pushing the restaurant's total back-of-house area to 3,425 square feet, an increase of 2,475 square feet over the earlier proposal. That expansion pushes the building's third floor from roughly 5,037 square feet to 6,290 square feet.
Per the outlet's reporting, the addition and related window changes will sit behind the existing building mass and won't be visible from Worth Avenue itself. Still, the larger service area triggered a higher parking requirement under Palm Beach's zoning code, which is why the town council's variance for additional parking spaces became a necessary piece of the approval.
Property owner TZ Capital, meanwhile, plans to reopen the building's two underground parking levels and introduce valet service for shoppers and diners, according to The Real Deal. The building's two subterranean levels were already in place, a detail confirmed by Commercial Observer.
Ownership Changes Hands Twice in Three Years
The building's path to redevelopment has involved some serious money changing hands. Billionaire Ken Griffin bought the property in 2022 for $78 million, then sold it in November 2025 for $80.5 million to TZ Capital, a West Palm Beach investment firm operating on behalf of the family office of GoldenTree Asset Management financier Steven Tananbaum, The Real Deal reported. Hoodline previously covered a broker's lawsuit over the $200 million sale of The Esplanade at 150 Worth Avenue.
Griffin's Worth Avenue divestments haven't stopped there. Investment giant Blackstone Real Estate agreed in August 2026 to buy the adjacent building at 125 Worth Avenue from Griffin for $86 million, a deal Commercial Observer says reflects the institutional capital reshaping ownership along the corridor; Griffin had acquired that property for $83 million in 2023. The activity comes as Worth Avenue's commercial vacancy is below 1%, with asking rents approaching $92 per square foot and recent property sales reaching over $4,300 per square foot, according to Commercial Observer.
Neiman Marcus's Long Run and Abrupt Exit
Neiman Marcus occupied the building for about 22 years before shuttering the location in September 2020, following its parent company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing that May amid pandemic pressures, per The Real Deal. The retailer eliminated $4 billion in debt during that restructuring, the outlet noted, but the closure left nearly 49,000 square feet vacant on one of the country's most exclusive shopping strips — a stretch known for Mediterranean-style architecture, palm-lined sidewalks, and neighbors like Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Loro Piana, and Ferragamo, per WPEC.
The renovation plan for 151 Worth Ave. leans into that aesthetic, calling for upgraded storefronts, balconies, landscaping, and a refreshed arcade alongside the Mediterranean-style architectural features the avenue is known for. The Palm Beach Architectural Commission was scheduled to weigh in on the third-floor addition and related window changes at a meeting Wednesday, and final architectural approval remains tied to the town's broader zoning approvals, the station reported.
Part of a Bigger South Florida Expansion
Starr's move onto Palm Beach island fits into a broader regional build-out. His restaurant group already runs Makoto in Bal Harbour, Steak 954 in Fort Lauderdale, and Pastis in Miami's Wynwood district, per The Real Deal. Starr has also been active personally in South Florida real estate — an entity affiliated with him bought a $13 million waterfront Mediterranean-style home on Pine Tree Drive in Miami Beach in June 2026, a purchase Hoodline detailed in its report on the deal.
Unlike Starr's restaurants in other major U.S. cities, the Palm Beach project is described as a standalone concept rather than a chain location, WPEC reports. With the Town Council's approval secured and the Architectural Commission review underway, the old Neiman Marcus building appears to be on a clearer path toward its next chapter as one of Worth Avenue's newest dining and shopping destinations.
