New Apple Stores?

[Badradio]

I think i know where about's it is (ground floor).

Which unit is it? I was there on Saturday but wasn't really paying attention.
Must admit - I'm dissappointed that they haven't chosen a location in the city. The Regent Street Store is in an amazing building, and I was hoping they'd choose something similar here - maybe King Street.

 

[takao]

Not much in the way of real news. The strongest rumors have been about a second Toronto store and about a 2007 opening of a Paris store (which I find incredibly late.) It is beginning to look like the BBC's report of VP Ron Johnson's remark about a store in continental Europe this year (last paragraph of this story) isn't going to pan out. If it is, we will need to hear about it very soon (2 - 6 weeks) for there to be much chance of a 2005 opening.

hehe yeah 2007 is still way off ... i wonder perhaps they are simply not able to find "the right" location or are waiting for a specific spot to get free...

opening a Store in Paris just seems like a no brainer to me ..what other cities in europe could seem such a no brainer ? in italy and germany you have a lot more choice of places/cities

 

[wdlove]

hehe yeah 2007 is still way off ... i wonder perhaps they are simply not able to find "the right" location or are waiting for a specific spot to get free...

opening a Store in Paris just seems like a no brainer to me ..what other cities in europe could seem such a no brainer ? in italy and germany you have a lot more choice of places/cities

It could be that Apple has found a location in Paris. With negotiations, construction, hiring, and training they figure 2007 to finalize and open.

 

[Sayhey]

hehe yeah 2007 is still way off ... i wonder perhaps they are simply not able to find "the right" location or are waiting for a specific spot to get free...

opening a Store in Paris just seems like a no brainer to me ..what other cities in europe could seem such a no brainer ? in italy and germany you have a lot more choice of places/cities

If the rumor of a 2007 Paris opening is true, which is a mighty big "if," it would make sense only if Apple has secured a location that won't be open until shortly before then. If Apple has access to a good location on the Champs Elysées before then, it makes absolutely no sense to wait. This should be, and probably is, their number one priority location.

There are a host of other European cities that make sense after Paris, including Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, etc. but getting through all the red tape and setting up the support systems, not to mention finding the best locations, all takes time. My guess is the rest of continental Europe becomes the priority for openings as soon as they have the Paris launch.

 

[takao]

There are a host of other European cities that make sense after Paris, including Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, etc. but getting through all the red tape and setting up the support systems, not to mention finding the best locations, all takes time. My guess is the rest of continental Europe becomes the priority for openings as soon as they have the Paris launch.

well in a few of those citites the choices are rather limited especially in the smaller countries like in Vienna where there are 2 streets and one really big mall which look like obvious choices.. but when thinking baout accesability with cars (a must for computer stores still ) and perhaps prestige one street and the mall get ruled out

but personally i'm all in hope for munich because that would be a lot cheaper and nearer to me

 

[garybUK]

Which unit is it? I was there on Saturday but wasn't really paying attention.
Must admit - I'm dissappointed that they haven't chosen a location in the city. The Regent Street Store is in an amazing building, and I was hoping they'd choose something similar here - maybe King Street.

You know the dome where selfridges is, if you go right towards WHSmiths and John Lewis its on the left hand side down there iirc.

Yeah town would have been a lot better even like if it's in St. Anne's Square or something. or on the corner where the new Arndale is (opposite the big outdoor TV)

 

[Sayhey]

Apple has given notice of the grand opening date for the Woodland Mall store in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It will open on June 25th at 10:00 am.

 

[h0e0h]

im sure eyelikeart would agree with me when i say:

NEW ORLEANS!!!!

There are tons of apple users here.

I'm from Monroe and i'd settle for ANYTHING in this state... i have family in both New Orleans and Baton Rouge... come on apple!

 

[wdlove]

I'm from Monroe and i'd settle for ANYTHING in this state... i have family in both New Orleans and Baton Rouge... come on apple!

Hopefully you will get a store soon. You can take some comfort in that fact that your cities are listed in the top 20 major urban centers without a Apple Store. They are number two and twenty respectively.

 

[aranhamo]

Atlanta Store

I was at the Lenox Square store in Atlanta on Thursday. I was surprised by the location they chose. There are two malls kiddy-corner to each other, and the other one is this way fancy upscale mall. However Apple chose to put their store in the Lenox Square mall, which is a decent mall, but not one of the upscale locations that Apple seems to typically choose for their retail store locations. Rent in the other mall is probably really high. It took forever to find a parking space at either mall (I went to the more upscale one first, expecting to find the Apple Store in there), as they have many sections of their parking lots reserved for valet parking. And this was on a Thursday afternoon in June... not what I would expect to be a busy shopping season. I was disappointed that inside the store they didn't have a single book on Mac development, or any other resource for developers. I guess even when we get an Apple Store in my town, I'll still have to depend on Barnes and Noble for my developer books and such. As expected, about a quarter or the store was dedicated to iPods and iPod accessories. And it was the first time I've seen the 30" display in person. Very nice. The store was very busy; there was a lot more traffic than you'd expect from the typical computer store. I tried to talk to the genius (my wife's user experiences a lot of slowness under Tiger, but my user is fine), but they said the genius bar was booked up for the next two days.

Last thing is that Atlanta is not the easiest town for visitors to get around in, what with toll roads and every other street being named Peachtree.

Maybe later today I'll get down to the Gateway to check on construction there.

 

[law guy]

Hopefully you will get a store soon. You can take some comfort in that fact that your cities are listed in the top 20 major urban centers without a Apple Store. They are number two and twenty respectively.

Happy to see folks talking about a store in New Orleans. My wife is from there and so there is always the lurking possibility of moving there... I guess you don't have to worry about dry skin.

Anyway - I was searching around today and found this out on the web:

"At least three empty spaces have appeared at the Esplanade mall in New Orleans, including a 40-foot space created by the move of Victoria's Secret. It once again raising suspicions that an Apple store may be closer to locating in the metro area."

It doesn't give me as much hope for an Apple store there as it makes me worry about all the empty space in the mall mentioned. I'm not familiary enough with N.O. - is this the upscale shopping mall where apple would likely locate if anywhere?

Has anyone heard any other rumors of a N.O. store?

 

[Daveway]

Happy to see folks talking about a store in New Orleans. My wife is from there and so there is always the lurking possibility of moving there... I guess you don't have to worry about dry skin.

Anyway - I was searching around today and found this out on the web:

"At least three empty spaces have appeared at the Esplanade mall in New Orleans, including a 40-foot space created by the move of Victoria's Secret. It once again raising suspicions that an Apple store may be closer to locating in the metro area."

It doesn't give me as much hope for an Apple store there as it makes me worry about all the empty space in the mall mentioned. I'm not familiary enough with N.O. - is this the upscale shopping mall where apple would likely locate if anywhere?

Has anyone heard any other rumors of a N.O. store?

i submitted that comment to Gary at ifo a few weeks ago. I live in the N.O. area and have been dumbfounded as to why we don't have one. I haven't been back to the mall since, but I doubt Apples going soon. Typically they would have posted jobs already.

We have been waiting soo long, I beginning to think Apple is waiting to put a flagship or go to a really upscale location on Canal blvd.

:crosses fingers:

 

[andiwm2003]

so, i just realized with the new store at burlington mall/boston, Ma i'm living 10-15 minutes away from three apple stores. wow, hard choices to make. what store to go to first?

seriously, does anybody know the opening date of the burlington mall store? and will it be a full size store or one of those mini stores?

andi

 

[wdlove]

so, i just realized with the new store at burlington mall/boston, Ma I'm living 10-15 minutes away from three apple stores. wow, hard choices to make. what store to go to first?

seriously, does anybody know the opening date of the burlington mall store? and will it be a full size store or one of those mini stores?

andi

The only thing that I could find was a job listing for the Burlington store. Sayhey might be able to locate more information.

Have also been waiting a long time for a opening notice at the South Shore Mall Store.

 

[law guy]

i submitted that comment to Gary at ifo a few weeks ago. I live in the N.O. area and have been dumbfounded as to why we don't have one. I haven't been back to the mall since, but I doubt Apples going soon. Typically they would have posted jobs already.

We have been waiting soo long, I beginning to think Apple is waiting to put a flagship or go to a really upscale location on Canal blvd.

:crosses fingers:

Is there anywhere in N.O. now to go and see new hardware - an authorized retailer? Do you have the sense that there are a lot of users there / strong enough market?

 

[SmileyDude]

so, i just realized with the new store at burlington mall/boston, Ma i'm living 10-15 minutes away from three apple stores. wow, hard choices to make. what store to go to first?

seriously, does anybody know the opening date of the burlington mall store? and will it be a full size store or one of those mini stores?

andi

I was just at the Burlington Mall today, and passed by the location of the new store. It's on the ground floor, in the same aisle as Radio Shack. It's a corner location. It's fairly close to the Cambridge Soundworks.

It looks fairly large, though I can't tell if it's the same size as the Rockingham Park, NH store. It is definetly not one of the mini stores, though. Unless they just put up a larger facade to hide the size

It's pretty tough to miss -- it has in big lettering "Apple Computer" coming soon.

I asked the information desk about when it might be opening, and they said they didn't know -- it could be weeks or even months.

 

[Sayhey]

so, i just realized with the new store at burlington mall/boston, Ma i'm living 10-15 minutes away from three apple stores. wow, hard choices to make. what store to go to first?

seriously, does anybody know the opening date of the burlington mall store? and will it be a full size store or one of those mini stores?

andi

I can't add much other than to say that Apple started listing jobs for this store on June 3rd over at Monster.com, but haven't done anything other than list the location on their own website. Usually this means a listing at Apple within a few weeks and an opening within 5-7 months from that date. The earliest opening from job listing to store opening was three months and the longest looks to be South Shore Plaza which is coming up on its one year anniversary of its job listings in July. I can only guess from past practice that this store is likely to open in the November to January timeframe. There is always a rush to open as many stores as possible before the end of the holiday season. South Shore Plaza and Hingham should open in your area first.

As to New Orleans, I can only say that while it is number two on the largest metro areas without a store, it is number one on my list of US cities I don't understand why Apple hasn't already opened a store in. I can only surmise that Apple is waiting on the perfect location.

Of interest in this is Apple's numbering scheme for its stores. As Apple signs a deal with a particular location it assigns it a number. This takes the form of "R###." ifoAppleStore has a list of the numbers here. Why I bring this up is the gaps in the numbering scheme. Some of the gaps are years old and represent stores that have fallen through the cracks, but others no doubt represent others that have been signed but are not yet to the point to advertise for job openings or list as a location. I count 11 stores not yet accounted for in this counting scheme in the last 50-60 stores opened. Some of these maybe in areas where Apple has signed an agreement, but is waiting for the location to open.

 

[puckhead193]

I was just at the Burlington Mall today, and passed by the location of the new store. It's on the ground floor, in the same aisle as Radio Shack. It's a corner location. It's fairly close to the Cambridge Soundworks.

Where is Burlington in MA? How far is it from milton?

 

[Sayhey]

Where is Burlington in MA? How far is it from milton?

It's about 25 miles NW of Milton. You'll be much closer (about 5 miles) to the South Shore store in Braintree. Mapquest is a great tool for this.

 

[chatin]

Close some too!!

I hope Apple cuts back on some of these retailers that are doing a poor job of really selling Apple. Like BestBuy and CompUSA.

WorstBuy... I mean JestBuy has 2 year old Apple systems on their website that have not been updated. A trip into CompUSA is a veritible museum of broken Mac demo machines, robbed of keys, dirty, neglected... like a dusty old vacum cleaners that have lost all suction.

 

[purell16]

Well if we're going by population, Texas is second only to California and I think it only has like three Apple Stores, two near (but not actually in) Dallas and one in Houston. I'm from San Antonio, and I think an Apple store there would do pretty well, but I can understand why there wouldn't be one, as San Antonians just don't seem to be Mac folks (makes me sad). But Apple has offices in Austin for crying out loud, it seems logical to me to have at least one there. Of course that assertion has nothing to do with the fact that I'd be less than an hour from it if there was one

Actually the Apple store in San Antonio will open September 16 in the new Shops at La Cantera near IH-10 and 1604

I can't wait!

 

[wdlove]

I hope Apple cuts back on some of these retailers that are doing a poor job of really selling Apple. Like BestBuy and CompUSA.

WorstBuy... I mean JestBuy has 2 year old Apple systems on their website that have not been updated. A trip into CompUSA is a veritable museum of broken Mac demo machines, robbed of keys, dirty, neglected... like a dusty old vacuum cleaners that have lost all suction.

The Best Buy in the store near me doesn't even carry any Mac's. Our local CompUSA, carries the latest Mac's. Just not very many. Usually a Power Mac, iMac, and one PowerBook. They keep then in good working order from what I've noticed.

 

[Daveway]

Is there anywhere in N.O. now to go and see new hardware - an authorized retailer? Do you have the sense that there are a lot of users there / strong enough market?

I think there are two authorized small businesses and there is a CompUSA nearby. Of course CompUSA is lacking lately because the Apple guy is never there and people are left wondering around with no one to answer questions.

Has anyone noticed that CompUSA recently revamped the Apple section in there stores? My local store recently re-arranged the area and put up the huge billboards you see in Apple stores.

 

[Sayhey]

Apple has begun listing individual job openings for the Brea, Thousand Oaks, Staten Island, Burlington, and Sheffield stores. Only the upcoming Manchester store has yet to begin the listing the individual job openings that mark the countdown of the usual 5-7 months to store opening. Manchester is accepting applications however, as previously noted.

Just so folks don't have to dig back too many pages, here is the updated list of 2005 stores.

1. Nagoya Sakae, Japan - opened 1/22
2. St. John's Town Center - Jacksonville, Florida - opened 3/18
3. The Gardens at Palm Beach - Palm Beach Gardens, Florida - opened 4/23
4. Bullring - Birmingham, England - opened 4/29
5. Yorkdale - Toronto, Canada - to open 5/21
6. Century City - Los Angeles, California - opened 6/04
7. Green Hills - Nashville, Tennessee - opened 6/04
8. Bridgeport Village - Tualatin, Oregon - opened 6/04
9. Woodland - Grand Rapids, Michigan - opened 6/25
10. South Shore Plaza - Braintree, Massachusetts
11. Lincoln Road - Miami Beach, Florida
12. Pioneer Place - Portland, Oregon
13. La Cantera - San Antonio, Texas
14. The Woodlands - Houston, Texas
15. Gateway Mall - Salt Lake City, Utah
16. Bluewater - Kent, England
17. Crabtree Valley - Raleigh, North Carolina
18. Manhattan Village - Manhattan Beach, California
19. Penn Square - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
20. Pentagon City - Arlington, Virginia
21. Garden State Plaza - Paramus, New Jersey
22. Northbrook Court - Northbrook, Illinois
23. Florida Mall - Orlando, Florida
24. Beverly Center - Los Angeles, California
25. Shibuya - Tokyo, Japan
26. Flatiron - New York City, New York
27. Eastview Mall - Victor, New York
28. Annapolis Mall - Annapolis, Maryland
29. Northpark Center - Dallas, Texas
30. Irvine Spectrum Center - Irvine, California
31. Derby Street - Hingham, Massachusetts
32. Midtown - New York City, New York
33. Fashion Square - Sherman Oaks, California
34. South Hills Village - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
35. Brea Mall - Brea, California
36. The Oaks - Thousand Oaks, California
37. Staten Island Mall - Staten Island, New York
38. Burlington Mall - Burlington, Massachusetts
39. Trafford Centre - Manchester, England
40. Meadowhall Centre - Sheffield, England

On another front, those looking forward to an opening in continental Europe might be interested in this speculation over at ifoAppleStore

While I've been lounging at home, Apple's retail execs have been traveling in Berlin (Germany), tipsters say, looking closely at the Kurfürstendamm (.de) section of the city for a suitable space, where KaDaWe claims to be the largest department store on the European continent. What's more, the execs say a store could open by late 2005 or early 2006. It would be the first store in Apple's promised expansion into Europe.
Interestingly, the 3-story MarkoMarkt store on Ku'damm closed just last week, and offers a perfectly located, if large, space for a future Apple store.

 

[wdlove]

Thank you the well done update Sahey. It's amazing that we have three store openings pending here in Massachusetts. Now the speculation of which one will be first.