CNN Style: LVMH opens $894 million luxury shopping destination in Paris

PARIS — historic 19th century landmark, forced to fade into the background along the banks of the river Seine in Paris for 16 years, has been brought out of hibernation and resurrected as a new all-in-one shopping, dining and tourist destination.

Part luxury department store, part hotel and promising to feature over a dozen eateries, the €750 million ($894 million) restoration of La Samaritaine, by French luxury conglomerate LVMH, is one of the most anticipated openings of the year in the French capital: On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the building, calling it a "wonderful French treasure."

When Samaritaine Paris Pont-Neuf opens its doors on Wednesday for the first time since closing in 2005 for safety reasons, it will become the newest luxury department store on the Parisian landscape. While Galeries Lafayette is best known for its theatrical balconies and Neo-byzantine glass dome, and Le Bon Marché bills itself as the world's oldest continually operating department store, Samaritaine Paris Pont-Neuf's big draw will be its location.

Set in the geographic center of Paris on the Right Bank, across from the oldest stone bridge in the city, Pont Neuf, the heritage building holds prime real estate along the Seine, with the Louvre museum a short five-minute walk away to the west, the Notre Dame Cathedral within walking distance to the east, and the recently opened contemporary art museum Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection five minutes straight north.

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