Question: Which department store was founded in Birmingham, Alabama?
Context: The Görlitz department store in Görlitz is one of the best preserved department stores from the beginning of the twentieth century.  It is built in the Art Nouveau style and was operated as a department store until August 15, 2009.  The city and a citizens' action group tried to revitalize the department store which in 2012 housed only a beauty shop.  In 2013, a private investor was found, who would like to obtain the facility as a universal department store, as the Department Store of Upper Lusatia (Kaufhaus der Oberlausitz , KaDeO) and thus a counterpart to the Berlin department store Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe). The SM Store (formerly known as SM Department Store) is a department store franchise run by SM Investments, the holding company of the SM Group.  SM Department Store now holds more than 30 branches located at cities and provinces in the Philippines.  SM Department Store became one of the top retail centers in the Philippines. Saks, Inc., originally Proffitt's Inc. until 1998, is a Fortune 1000 operator of high-end department stores in the United States under the nameplate Saks Fifth Avenue.  It was founded in Birmingham, Alabama and is currently headquartered in New York City. The Stockmann department store is a culturally significant business building and department store located in the centre of Helsinki, Finland.  It is one of many department stores owned by the Stockmann corporation.  It is the largest department store in the Nordic countries in terms of area and total sales.  The store is known for carrying all the internationally recognised luxury brands, and Stockmann's enjoys a reputation as the primary high-end department store in Finland.  "Stockmannin Herkku", the food and beverage department located at the basement level, is renowned for the quality and choice of its foodstuffs.  The Stockmann logo represents a set of escalators, which are commonly, but wrongly believed represent the first escalators in Finland.  The first escalators in Finland were installed in the Forum department store, Turku (1926) Proffitt's was a department store chain based in Alcoa, Tennessee.  On March 8, 2006, the Proffitt's and McRae's stores were converted into Belk stores.  Belk acquired the two chains in July 2005 from Saks, Inc. G. Fox & Co. was a large department store that originated in Hartford, Connecticut.  The store was also the largest privately held department store in the nation when it was sold in 1965 to the May Department Stores Company.  In 1992 May Department stores phased out the G. Fox & Co. name converting them into the Boston-based department store Filene's.  In 2005, the May Company was merged with Federated Department Stores which converted the store and all of the other regional chains to Macy's. The Gus Blass Department Store is a historic commercial building at 318-324 Main Street in Little Rock, Arkansas.  It is a seven story masonry structure, built in 1912 to a design by George R. Mann, a leading Arkansas architect.  It was one of the first instances of two-way concrete slab construction in the nation, and was one of the first department stores in the state to be air conditioned (in 1936).  The Blass Department Store was for many years the city's largest department store, and remained in business here into the 1970s, ultimately becoming a part of the Dillard's department store chain before closing in 1972. The E. B. Colwell and Company Department Store is a historic department store building located at 208 South Main Street and 211 South A Street in Monmouth, Illinois.  Local businessman Edward B. Colwell had the store built in 1904.  Architect J. Grant Beadle of Galesburg designed the three-story Chicago school building.  The store was Monmouth's only true department store; its main competitor, the Allen Store, was the largest dry goods store in Monmouth but was nonetheless smaller than the Colwell store.  Shoppers came to the store from throughout Warren County, and from elsewhere in western Illinois via car and interurban railroad.  The store's size and reputation allowed it to sell goods such as china under their own brand name, and it came to be known as "the Marshall Field's of western Illinois".  The store suffered a downturn during the Great Depression, and while Colwell's second wife kept it in business for many years, the couple sold their store in 1959. Efird's Department Store, also known as Lourie’s Department Store, is a historic department store building located at Columbia, South Carolina.  It was built about 1870, and is a rectangular brick building renovated and expanded in 1919.  This included the addition of a third story and the installation of a new brick façade and store entrances.  Between 1919 and 1958, it housed the Columbia branch of the Charlotte, North Carolina based Efird’s Department Store chain. Pizitz was a major regional department store chain in Alabama, with its flagship store in downtown Birmingham.  At its peak it operated 12 other stores, mostly in the Birmingham area with several locations in Huntsville and other Alabama cities.
Answer: Saks, Inc.