I’m a bit under the weather right now, so I have just a few quick things to share this week:
Apple South Shore
Last week I mentioned Apple South Shore in Braintree, Massachusetts was preparing to move, and now we have a grand opening date: November 18 at 10:00 AM. Drop me a line if you stop in! When I was researching this location, I noticed it was one in a trio of stores that all opened August 6, 2005. Birthday pals with South Shore are Apple Pentagon City in Arlington, Virginia, and Apple Shibuya in Tokyo.
Both South Shore and Pentagon City took a bit of an opening day backseat to Shibuya, which marked a significant expansion for Apple in Japan. MacCentral noted Tokyo was the first place outside of the US with more than one Apple Store. Here are two great excerpts from a copy of the article I dug up on the Internet Archive:
…With this teen audience as a focus the Shibuya store is heavily promoting music.
“Shibuya is younger and more hip [than Ginza] and so we’re pushing iPod, iTunes Music Store and the iShuffle,” said Steve Cano, regional manager of Apple’s retail business in Japan.
The Shibuya store is Apple’s fourth in Japan and at least two more are planned for the country, said Cano. They’ll be in Sendai, north of Tokyo, and Fukuoka, in western Japan. Cano wouldn’t reveal future plans beyond those stores.
Imagine that!
By now, Tabletops readers should know of my obsession with the pinstripe glass dividers that split early Apple Stores into themed sections. With the replacement of Apple South Shore, I regret to inform you that I know of only four other locations worldwide with their stripes intact:
Revisiting The One
In October, we took a look back at incredible Apple Stores that were designed but never built. The latest addition to the list was The One, a skyscraper project in Toronto that Apple recently walked away from. Following the news, real estate developer Sam Mizrahi gave a tour of the site, including Apple’s former space.
Here’s a great detail:
Mizrahi walked us through the ground floor retail space, outlining a number of highly-specific and complex structural components that were designed multiple years ago and installed specifically at the request of the retailer who will no longer be occupying the space. While we are not able to go into details on exactly what those design specifications were, a number of other design features will continue to be optimized and utilized by a new retail tenant. These include a 35 ft-wide LED screen system positioned on the south wall of the retail space which will easily be viewable from pedestrians passing by on Bloor or Yonge streets. The space was also designed to incorporate an irrigation system to allow for live trees and plantings for enhanced greenery in the space.
Apple Main Place
Last week in Naperville, Illinois, thieves drove a vehicle directly through the front doors of Apple Main Place. Thankfully, the incident occurred outside of store hours. I was initially shocked by the news, since I recalled without a doubt that this store had protective bollards in front of the entry. Upon further research, I learned that during a recent street reconstruction project, the bollards, which appeared to be city-installed, were actually removed and the sidewalk reconstructed, making a convenient ramp from the street to the storefront.
These kinds of crashes keep happening. In August, I applauded Apple’s efforts to install bollards at more stores, but I’m starting to think they need to move even faster toward protection at every outdoor location. Incidents like this linger uncomfortably in the back of my mind every single time I visit a store.
Featured image
Apple New Town Plaza
Photo via @meischer.s.