Apr 13, 2009 10:03 am US/Central
Apple Store To Open Location On Clybourn Corridor
Apple Chooses Lincoln Park Area Over State Street
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Apple Inc. has reportedly picked the Clybourn Corridor for its new store, eschewing an earlier proposed location on State Street downtown.
Presently, Apple has only one Chicago retail store, at 679 N. Michigan Ave. on the Magnificent Mile, and suburban locations at the Deer Park Town Center, Northbrook Court, Oakbrook Center, Orland Square, Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, and Old Orchard Mall in Skokie.
Crain's Chicago Business reports that Apple now plans to open a second Chicago location at the former site of a BP gas station, on a triangle of land bounded by North Avenue, Clybourn Avenue and Halsted Street.
A developer told Crain's that Apple likely chose Lincoln Park over the Loop because State Street shopers tend to be from a "slightly lower socio-economic group."
Apple has signed a long-term lease and will pay $700,000 annual rent for the space, according to Crain's. A 15,000 square-foot store would rise on the spot, designed by San Francisco office of the architectural firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Crain's reported.
Apple had previously planned to open a store on Block 37 downtown, but
those plans were dropped last month. Block 37 is bounded by State, Dearborn, Randolph and Washington streets, and the CBS 2 Broadcast Center at 22 W. Washington St. is on the southwest corner of the block.
The North and Clybourn location that the Apple Store has picked has been a trendy part of the city's Near North Side for several years, surrounded by an assortment of high-end clothing, jewelry and housewares retailers, fashionable restaurants including Grant Achatz' famous Alinea 1723 N. Halsted St., and the Weed Street nightclub district.
But this has not always been true. As recently as two decades ago, the area was struggling with poverty and crime that had spread from the nearby Cabrini-Green public housing development.
When developers built the New City YMCA, which stood on Halsted Street less than a block from the proposed Apple Store, they constructed the building with few windows for fear that gang crossfire might shatter them. The New City YMCA was demolished two years ago, and today, the area is usually considered more a part of the Lincoln Park neighborhood.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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