Prince McleanSometime this year Apple Computer is expected to begin renovation and construction efforts on its second New York City-based retail store, set to touch down in central Manhattan.
The GM building, which rests atop an entire city block directly across the street from the Plaza Hotel, is also home to an FAO Schwarz toy store, which moved in fourteen years ago. The building is also just a few strides from the southern tip of Central Park.
Although it's very early in the development stages, sources say Apple will turn the 21,000-square-foot space into a retail store that will 'rival anything seen so far' from the company's retail division.
Specifics are lacking, but one source claims Apple will give the exterior of the store a look similar to the glass Pyramid found in the Louvre's cour Napoléon, only in cube form.
The cost of the venture is expected to be steep. Apple's existing New York-based flagship store, located in Manhattan's SoHo district, reportedly costs the company just over $2 million in rent each year, on top of an initial $5 million in renovation costs.
Insiders believe the GM retail location fetched over $3 million a year.
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64 Comments
They certainly don't mess around anymore.
All they need now is a store on Madison Ave selling gemstone-encrusted iPod photos for $10k a pop and they'll have NYC covered.
They certainly don't mess around anymore.
All they need now is a store on Madison Ave selling gemstone-encrusted iPod photos for $10k a pop and they'll have NYC covered.
This could be that store. If this store stretches from one end of the block to the other (if possible), there could be a Madison Ave. entrance. Including (like you said) selling this.
It won't stretch that far, it would have to cut across Rockefeller Center. The GM building is the west edge of that complex. It's right on the southeast corner of the Park. Well, technically, it's a block off, but the fountain and drawn carriage area feel like Central Park proper. FAO Shwartz has the entrance right on the corner of 5th and 59th, so this would have to be either just south of that on 5th or around the corner.
A better analogy for the facade would probably be the Rose Center, at least for the NYC folks who know it. It uses a point-supported curtain wall, though I bet even Apple won't go with a system that expensive.
OH MY GOD!!
3 blocks away!
<kneels on bended knee and thanks almighty for bounty>
The only thing better is having Steve Jobs deliver me a Pizza!
ack!
Actually, what they need now is a mini store in Astoria, so my brother doesn't have to hop the iron worm all the way to SOHO. 8)