Apple will open a third New York City store at 14th Street and 9th Avenue in the city’s meatpacking district, according to CFO Peter Oppenheimer during today’s financial results conference call. The district is changing rapidly, with the addition of upscale retailers and hotels taking the place of meatpacking companies over the past year. The store will be inside the former Western Beef building, now managed by Robert K. Futterman & Associates, the same company that handled the Fifth Avenue store deal. The building has been completely renovated for $10 million, according to city permit records, and occupies a very prominent corner location where three streets come together. Futterman originally wanted to lease the 52,000 square-foot, three-story building to a single company at $5 million to $6 million a year, according to news accounts. A restaurant that occupied the 12,000 square-foot ground floor space earlier this year was reportedly paying $300 per square-foot per year.
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I wonder if they’d be able to negotiate getting the billboard on top taken down as Apple has very strict design standards for their stores, and a rusting old billboard on top isn’t one of them. A rooftop garden, like on top of NMA would however look nice. A shame that Apple is gonna do it’s standard interior to the store as it has nice 12 and 14 foot ceilings with antique wooden beams that unfortunately will all be covered over.
-Brian
I just walked by 401 W 14 to check it out. It seems to be undergoing gut renovation, and there’s a building permit to add a 4th story. Presumably this is where the billboards are now; not sure if they’ll be removed or just moved higher.
Fourth. Staten Island is still part of New York City.
The New York Post real estate section confirms the new store and provides more detail. It says Apple leased 32,000 square feet on the cellar, ground and second floor out of the building’s total 60,000. The building will add a 9,000 sq. ft penthouse and 2,500 feet of terraces. Penthouse space is still available, as is 7,000 sq ft on the ground with an asking rent of $400 a square feet, 1,500 in the cellar and 10,500 feet in the third floor. Here’s the link:
There are a lot of rumors going around Times Square area workers & merchants that apple’s going to open a store in times square in two adjacent spaces that just closed over the weekend on 44th street: 200 W 44th street, and a large electronics retail store on the corner of 44th Street & 7th ave. Killer location if it’s true.
Personally, I think Apple is nuts for consistently overpaying for retail space. Renovation and operational costs aside, 32,000 square feet at $400 = $12.8 million per year.
That’s over $35,000 a day in gross margin needed just to pay the rent.
A Times Square store would be a nice marketing venture, but a bad investment in my opinion. Even people who work in Times Square avoid Broadway and 7th Avenue. It’s mainly for tourists. How many tourists are going to happen to buy a Mac while on vacation? And the majority of tourists this summer will be foreign tourists because of the cheap dollar (although I suppose that can work in Apple’s favor.)
A Times Square store is only a 15-20 minute walk from the Fifth Avenue store. How many stores does Apple need in NYC? If Apple is going to place another NYC store, I think they would be much better off putting it on the upper east side – around 3rd avenue and 86th street.
Real New Yorkers have no problem going to one of the other Apple stores, J&R, BH Photo/Video, Tekserve or one of the zillion other retailers that sell Macs.
If Apple wants to take a unique approach to retailing computers, they should have a service where you can order a computer online and have it delivered to your door anywhere in NYC for free the same day. [IFO-The company leasing the building to Apple, R.K. Futterman, is asking $400 a year per s.f. for the remaining ground-floor space of the building. But since Futterman has worked with Apple before on spaces (including Fifth Avenue), Apple is unlikely to be paying that much for the space. In fact, Apple reportedly paid next to nothing for the Fifth Avenue space, because it was so unattractive a location to other retailers at the time.]