Downtown Chicago Store Nearly Certain

Local media reports have today confirmed a report here in December 2005 that Apple is in negotiations to open a retail store at 108 State Street in downtown Chicago. The site called Block 37 has been vacant since 1989, and several project proposals have failed to win financing and city approvals. Now Mills Development has construction underway for retail space, a broadcast TV studio, transit center and subway station on the one square-block site less than a mile from the existing North Michigan Avenue store. Floor plans of the site indicate there’s no space large enough to qualify as a flagship store, but rather something in the routine 6,000 square-foot range on a single level. Check these architectural renderings of the stor discovered last March, showing what the project will look like, and a possible Apple store location.