Apple Proposing a Massive Glass-Roofed Retail Store on the Third Street Promenade

[MacRumors]

At the Santa Monica Planning Commission tonight, Apple is believed to be proposing a dramatic new Apple Retail Store on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California. As first noted by Curbed, the proposal is from an unnamed retailer who is seeking to construct a new 8,084 square foot commercial building in the place of an existing three story Borders Bookstore.

The applicant is listed as "Howard Robinson" and the property owner as ASB/Blatteis Promenade Holdings, LLC, but one look at the renderings (above and below), and it's clear that this is an Apple Retail store project.




The proposal (PDF) is for a one-story, 34-foot high commercial building with an "expansive floor-to-ceiling height accentuated by a transparent glass ceiling." The front will be entirely glass that will project from stone paneled side walls. A 5,210 sq foot basement will also be included.

The applicant also intends to implement a transportation program for employees to travel to and from the store using alternative modes of transportation. Full-time employees will be offered $100 monthly transit subsidy and a $20/month bicycle reimbursement subsidy as well as bicycle parking in the basement level.

Apple has been making some major upgrades to their retail stores in the recent months. Their 5th Avenue Store in New York is undergoing a $6.6 million upgrade while a new Grand Central project has also been getting headlines. Apple already has an Apple Retail store on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade.

Article Link: Apple Proposing a Massive Glass-Roofed Retail Store on the Third Street Promenade

[talkingfuture]

That looks fantastic. Although I guess it will take a lot of cooling on sunny days! Its good to see the latest generation of stores being braver architecturally.

[bchreng]

Wouldn't all that light shining down make it a little difficult to see what's being displayed on the LCD panels of the various products?

[Ahheck01]

Originally Posted by bchreng

Wouldn't all that light shining down make it a little difficult to see what's being displayed on the LCD panels of the various products?

If the ceiling glass is auto-dimming, color me impressed.

[mdavis]

Originally Posted by bchreng

Wouldn't all that light shining down make it a little difficult to see what's being displayed on the LCD panels of the various products?

Pretty much what I was thinking: glossy screens?

[mukade]

Glass is always a good idea in an earthquake zone.

[AfternoonDelete]

Looks beautiful.
I've been to the Third St. Promenade many times and this new store would be spectacular -- a nice improvement on the existing Apple Store there, which is plenty nice anyway.

[ArdBuijsen]

So Apple rightfully doesn't install Flash because it is a energy hog but they have a building designed which doesn't function without a tremendous cooling system which is a much bigger energy hog. Stupid this design.

[reputationZed]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Polarized glass? They must have some solution for controlling the amount of sunlight entering the building.

[Tech198]

Bloody oath that looks good..

But hey, its Apple. they can afford it..... can't they ?

[Lone Deranger]

Originally Posted by talkingfuture

Its good to see the latest generation of stores being braver architecturally.

Very nicely put.
Perhaps Apple's trying to improve upon what could be considered their v1.0 stores which have found themselves targeted by the Redmond copy machines™.

[Tech198]

Originally Posted by ArdBuijsen

So Apple rightfully doesn't install Flash because it is a energy hog but they have a building designed which doesn't function without a tremendous cooling system which is a much bigger energy hog. Stupid this design.

ok.. doesn't sound good when you put it like that though.

[Asclepio]

With all those glossy screens! i hope is a night club store.

[shawnce]

Originally Posted by ArdBuijsen

So Apple rightfully doesn't install Flash because it is a energy hog but they have a building designed which doesn't function without a tremendous cooling system which is a much bigger energy hog. Stupid this design.

You do know that several types of glass coatings have the ability to reflect a large amount of the infrared spectrum of light which would reduce the heat load caused by such a ceiling. Additionally polarization and other coating can reduce the total amount of light making it into the building.

It will be interesting to see how Apple goes with this.

[Mr. Gates]

I just imagine it getting dirty really fast.

And the light would be too much.

Bad idea.

[mrsmitty13]

Something that would be cool to see on google earth LOL

[Morod]

Form follows function? Or... Maybe not?
It does look nice, either way.

[christian_k]

The applicant also intends to implement a transportation program for employees to travel to and from the store using alternative modes of transportation. Full-time employees will be offered $100 monthly transit subsidy and a $20/month bicycle reimbursement subsidy as well as bicycle parking in the basement level.

I like this very much. Sometimes I use the road bike to get to work, meaning 25.5 miles (42 km) in the morning and another 25.5 in the evening through hilly terrain. Obviously I cannot do this every day, but I encourage everyone to give it a try. Environmentally friendly transportation can be fun, really!

Christian

[RedTomato]

Modern engineered glass is amazing stuff.

Apple seem to be becoming one of the world experts in glass, with the sheer variety of ways they use leading edge glasses - in iPod, iPad, iPhone etc, and in their various buildings, new HQ, glass staircases etc.

I feel certain the glass on the roof of this new store will be something highly engineered for passive climate control.

[ArdBuijsen]

Originally Posted by shawnce

You do know that several types of glass coatings have the ability to reflect a large amount of the infrared spectrum of light which would reduce the heat load caused by such a ceiling. Additionally polarization and other coating can reduce the total amount of light making it into the building.

It will be interesting to see how Apple goes with this.

Yes I do know. But this amount of glass will with whatever coating and filling need a huge cooling system. Look at all the glass building from recent times. They all have sun shading of some sort to prevent overheating. Overheating even is a problem now in the Netherlands so it's no longer the heating system that uses the most energy but the cooling system.

Of course they can use all sorts of sustainable cooling systems. That I don't know. But this building will definitely need an additional cooling system.

[CplBadboy]

Originally Posted by bchreng

Wouldn't all that light shining down make it a little difficult to see what's being displayed on the LCD panels of the various products?

If it is does this mean that Apple will finally be cutting their premium for anti glare displays on the Apple line up or perhaps getting rid of glossy for good!!!! Woohoo!!!!!

[Dreamer2go]

Well if Apple use triple glazed glass, then it might help. As I recall an architect class I took in university before, using triple glazed glass is quite environmental friendly.

More info here:

http://www.homebuilding.co.uk/featur...ing-make-sense
http://www.tripleglazing.com/performance.html

[arn]

so,

As pointed out to me on twitter, there is a NYC store that's similar, though looks a little smaller



http://www.apple.com/retail/upperwestside/

[chairguru22]

Looks really cool and unique...

[tabasco70]

The applicant is listed as "Howard Robinson" and the property owner as ASB/Blatteis Promenade Holdings, LLC, but one look at the renderings (above and below), and it's clear that this is an Apple Retail store project.

Can't just be assuming Howard Robinson isn't the one behind all those fake Apple Stores in China... maybe he's looking to move operations to Cali