Just as we exclusively reported last year (and no one believed us), Apple will build one of its biggest retail stores yet in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal.
Apple signed a 10-year lease with New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to build a whopping 23,000-square-foot store on the upper balcony of the iconic train station, the New York Post reports.
The store will fill Grand Central’s north and northeastern balconies, displacing Charlie Palmer’s Metrazur restaurant. It will be among Apple’s largest stores, about 3,000 to 5,000 square feet larger smaller than Apple’s biggest stores in London and on New York’s West 14th Street.
The MTA is offering Apple a special move-in rent of $800,000 (a cool half-mill more than Charlie Palmer’s restaurant is currently paying). Then it will up the rent to $1 million annually. Apple will pay to refurbish the space, and the MTA estimates it will make $5 million profit on the deal, and revitalize retail at the popular station.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
16 responses to “Apple To Build Massive Store In Grand Central Terminal [Signed, Sealed, Delivered]”
They’ll have to sell a lot of Air’s & Mini’s to cover a $800K lease, but it’s not about profit, it’s about being in THAT location that is a good business move for Apple.
-Chris
http://friendsofmac.net
Just as we exclusively reported last year (and -on- *no one believed us)
“…Apple will build its biggest retail store yet…”
Even based on the probably inflated 23,000 square feet, it wouldn’t make the top three in terms of area:
1. Regent Street Apple store, London – 28,000 square feet
2. West 14th Street Apple store, New York – 30,000 square feet (estimated figure)
3. North Michigan Avenue Apple Store, Chicago – 24,000 square fee
thttp://news.worldofapple.com/…
(Interesting that Apple Insider made the same error, just earlier…)
@Ryszard2 — thanks. my mistake. fixed it.
I paid $32.69 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Sony laptop for $94.87 being delivered to our house tomorrow by FedEX. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores. I even sold a 46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $51.77 to get. Here is the website we using to get all this stuff, LiveCent.com
This will be incredible exposure and advertising for Apple! Yes, it’s a pot load of rent every year, but when you factor in how many hundreds of thousands of people flow through the station every single day, it’s going to do well by increasing Apple’s visibility by leaps and bounds for commuters and travelers. I’ll even wager that it will assist in the increasing adoption of Macs, iPhones and iPads in business environments, because a majority of travelers will be business people. Almost makes me want to visit New York just to see the new store when it’s completed. Can’t wait for the photos. If a restaurant can do well there, Apple should clean up.
Wow. The Grand Central Terminal is such an iconic building just on its own… just a further stepping stone for Apple to become the Tiffany’s of computer retail. Only much more profitable, of course.
USD 1M for 23,000 sq feet is USD 43 / sq foot / year. This report from 2006 places Apple revenue at over USD 4,000 / sq foot so it looks like this is going to be a big time earner for Apple. Revenues are not earnings of course, but Apple profit is historically near 30% so the rent looks like peanuts compared to Apple Store average earnings.Reference:http://seekingalpha.com/articl…
PS: I am unable to use the “dollar” sign here for some reason.
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