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Apple Store in Chicago Area Permanently Closing Later This Month

maruyama said:
Southport is totally the right vibe for an urban Apple Store, but I think it's too close to the Lincoln Park one for them to put one there. Lincoln Square is far enough away, and I could definitely see one going in there at some point.

I could see a small one going into the West Loop once they get a few more residential high rises. It's almost too close to the Michigan Ave flagship, but the density might be almost enough now to support a satellite store downtown.
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I agree about the West Loop, but I think Southport is far enough away. In NYC, there are often a few Apple Stores within walking distance of wherever you are. Chicago doesn't have that much density but could certainly support a few more stores.
 
ChrisA said:
It is not just Apple but all mall-stores are going away. Some people blame this on Amazon, but the trend started before Amazon.

Studies using camera recordings of parking lots show why. Many people driving cars looking for parking will spend 5 minutes searching for a parking space that saves them a 1-minute walk. So clearly they don't like walking because searching for 5 minutes does not save time. It is the physical effort of walking they don't like. Malls are a victim of the obesity epidemic.
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God how I wish this was true. Everywhere I go, the mall, the grocery store, best buy, home depot, I purposely park almost at the end of a row. Parking lot is wide open. Plenty of spots up front. But I like parking away from other cars. Every single time I leave the store, no matter how far away I park, inevitably there's a car to my left, a car to my right, a car in front. WTF!!!! Why would you want to park next to someone? I purposefully leave space so I'm not jammed in and i can open my door and my car doesn't get damaged from retards opening there's. Yet every effin time I'm the only car around when I park, and surrounded when I leave.
Ugh
 
ChrisA said:
It is not just Apple but all mall-stores are going away. Some people blame this on Amazon, but the trend started before Amazon.

Studies using camera recordings of parking lots show why. Many people driving cars looking for parking will spend 5 minutes searching for a parking space that saves them a 1-minute walk. So clearly they don't like walking because searching for 5 minutes does not save time. It is the physical effort of walking they don't like. Malls are a victim of the obesity epidemic.
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So people aren't shopping at malls because they're so packed with other people that they can't find a close parking spot?
 
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mwd25 said:
God how I wish this was true. Everywhere I go, the mall, the grocery store, best buy, home depot, I purposely park almost at the end of a row. Parking lot is wide open. Plenty of spots up front. But I like parking away from other cars. Every single time I leave the store, no matter how far away I park, inevitably there's a car to my left, a car to my right, a car in front. WTF!!!! Why would you want to park next to someone? I purposefully leave space so I'm not jammed in and i can open my door and my car doesn't get damaged from retards opening there's. Yet every effin time I'm the only car around when I park, and surrounded when I leave.
Ugh
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Parking lot rage, minus the people or even anything.
 
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Seems like four or more Apple Mall stores in the Phoenix sprawl. To go from the east side where we are to the Northwest corner where I-19 starts north to Flagstaff takes close to 90 minutes if one drives the posted 65 mph. Many folks are driving 10 to 15 mph over the posted and I see very few Performance Awards being handed out by police.

Older folks (I just turned 80) are not thrilled to drive like it is a race to the scene of the accident. Thus we seldom use the mall shopping model.

We purchased close to $40k of Apple gear between November 2024 M4 gear release and 20 January 2025 on line with gear in hand before that date and no tariffs were imposed yet but threatened.

Not expecting to acquire new Apple gear for years and no need to go to a mall where there is an Apple Store except for a warranty issue.

Lots of folks my age look like we have had too many French fries with shake and burger way too often. The Doc said to watch my stomach and it is right out there to see 😳😱

At least the strip malls required one to walk the length like a city block to see every store like the individual stores of my youth in the 50s and 60s.
 
We need more Apple Stores in India. Also Bangladesh needs one. Why does Apple totally ignore the South East Asia region?
 
kingtj1971 said:
I'm not even sure it's that simple? I live in a smaller city with a mall that's been on life support for at least a decade. They never could get another big "anchor" store to replace Sears when it left. They finally put in a movie theater, but that's only viable because the next closest AMC theater closed - redirecting everyone to this one.

As I understand it? The mall owners generally built these malls with expectations they'd require a multi million dollar refresh at least once every decade or so. Everything from heating and cooling systems to all the flooring and doors going in and out are just going to be wearing out by then. When the mall can't bring in the kind of rent required to make those costs feasible, they defer the maintenance on the property and let it limp along until it dies out. A big part of the equation is to constantly keep 2 or 3 anchor stores leasing space in one. The math works out for them to let smaller merchants come and go, leaving vacancies. But the anchors really cost-justify the mall operation. With Sears pretty much out of the picture and JC Penney struggling? Things don't look promising for that business model.
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There's a sweet spot.

If a city is too large, there are too many competitors for a mall to stay open.
If a city is too small, there aren't enough people or other businesses to sustain a mall.

Where I live is a bit of an exception. It's a big city, but large enough that there are luxury stores (Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, Coach, etc) that other stores want to be near, so the malls work.
 
The store in Old Orchard is always busy when I go in, and I’m there often because I’m a klutz and I drop and crack screens with some regularity. Most of the stores in Northbrook are empty. That mall has been on its way out. My partner used to be the Burberry Store Manager at Northbrook and when he left in 2011 the mall was fine, but in 2013 when we met, Northbrook was definitely losing stores, it seems like every time I went there one of the anchor stores was going out of business. Now it’s a ghost town. Just decrepit mall walkers.
 
ChrisA said:
It is not just Apple but all mall-stores are going away. Some people blame this on Amazon, but the trend started before Amazon.

Studies using camera recordings of parking lots show why. Many people driving cars looking for parking will spend 5 minutes searching for a parking space that saves them a 1-minute walk. So clearly they don't like walking because searching for 5 minutes does not save time. It is the physical effort of walking they don't like. Malls are a victim of the obesity epidemic.

You don't have to do a scientific study to see this, all of us have seen people circling the parking lots and waiting for someone to back out of a close-in parking space when the far end of the parking lot is nearly empty

Some malls have recovered by turning the stores around to you can enter from the outside and park close to the store. But even doing this kills the whole point of a mall. The point is to generate foot traffic by forcing shoppers to walk past many stores on their way to the one they want to shop at. The point is that EVERY store benefits from people who have to walk and might do an impulse buy. But now many people refuse to walk if they can avoid it. and the malls don't work
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That's interesting. I am the opposite - I detest looking for spaces and try to walk anyway, so I usually park far away from the entrance. I found walking helps keep me healthier.
 
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