Umm ... can you have two flagships? Isn't that like pluralizing the Lone Ranger?
No. Look up Flagship Store..n/m I did it for you.
A flagship store, or simply a flagship, is a main store from a retailer designed to serve a mainstream of customers. Most noticeably, flagships are found in prominent shopping districts (e.g., Ginza, Madison Avenue, etc.) that are targets for a main set of worldwide high-income shoppers. Because of this, shopping at an upscale flagship is seen as high social/economic status. Flagships are, as well, larger in retail size (bigger than its retailer's outlets and in mall stores) and hold the most volumes in merchandise. These stores become a more preferred shopping destination for the retailers' goods. Flagships are meant to overshadow its sister stores in its area.
For example, the brand Abercrombie & Fitch holds 359 mall stores in the U.S. and operates two flagships in the country: one on Fifth Avenue and one at The Grove at Farmers Market to serve people on the east coast and the west coast of the U.S. (respectively). The brand also marked expansion into the United Kingdom with a flagship in Savile Row and will add stores around the flagship. Meanwhile, it is preparing to launch a flagship in Ginza to mark Asian expansion.
Many other upscale retailers operate flagships worldwide. This includes but is not limited to the following brands: Prada, Louis Vuitton, Polo Ralph Lauren (which claims its flagship in Tokyo, Japan to be a milestone for the brand), Dior, and The Apple Store among numerous others. The A&F brand, Hollister Co., is slated to open its first flagship by 2009.
Absolutely spot on. The demographics for this site are perfect for Apple. It's in the middle of neighborhoods filled with young, affluent urban professional consumers. It's accessible by road, expressway and rapid transit for people from outside the area, too, with affordable parking that you won't find around Michigan Avenue or State Street. Drive through the area today and you get a vivid impression of the dynamics. The stores are all new construction on repurposed tracts of land. The amount of new and top-shelf residential construction - single and multi-family - is awesome. Smart investors want to grab any home deals they can find in the area right now, because in another year prices will be skyrocketing again. Sure, the diagonal, narrow streets make for lots of traffic congestion, but that's typical of the entire North Side. Borders across the street is a really nice bookstore in new construction, but its problems are the same as the entire Borders chain, which is struggling everywhere. BTW, I live in the suburbs and have no bias or favorites among Chicago neighborhoods. My closest Apple Retail Store is in Oak Brook, where I park in the garage directly underneath it. But looking at the new location objectively, it simply offers premier merchandising opportunities. Expect it to be one of Apple's top grossers.
This is the perfect spot for a new Apple Store. North Avenue has been undergoing a revitalization for some time now and this is only the latest chapter in that. As for all the complaints about traffic congestion, hello people, it's Chicago! You're not in the suburbs anymore so get used to it. Clybourn Ave. already was terrible on the weekends so it's not like a new retail draw is going to make it get any worse than it already was. I live in the Lakeview neighborhood so this will be the store for anyone living on the North Side. The Michigan Ave. location is like many other spots on the Mag Mile; it's there strictly for visibility value and for tourists. As for the the other comments from other threads asking why doesn't Apple just buy the land are absurd. The owners obviously don't want to sell! That land is a literal gold mine and the value will only go up. Finally, all the talk about dubious safety in the area, again, it's the city people. If you can't feel relatively safe on North Avenue and Clybourn then God help you if you find yourself somewhere truly sketchy in Chicago. Bridgeview neighborhood, this means you...
This is the perfect spot for a new Apple Store. North Avenue has been undergoing a revitalization for some time now and this is only the latest chapter in that. As for all the complaints about traffic congestion, hello people, it's Chicago! You're not in the suburbs anymore so get used to it. Clybourn Ave. already was terrible on the weekends so it's not like a new retail draw is going to make it get any worse than it already was. I live in the Lakeview neighborhood so this will be the store for anyone living on the North Side. The Michigan Ave. location is like many other spots on the Mag Mile; it's there strictly for visibility value and for tourists. As for the the other comments from other threads asking why doesn't Apple just buy the land are absurd. The owners obviously don't want to sell! That land is a literal gold mine and the value will only go up. Finally, all the talk about dubious safety in the area, again, it's the city people. If you can't feel relatively safe on North Avenue and Clybourn then God help you if you find yourself somewhere truly sketchy in Chicago. Bridgeview neighborhood, this means you...
I guess I wouldn't say the location is "bad." It's just not nearly as good as a State St location (and therefore not "perfect"). They would have a far larger customer base on State St, namely all the Loop workers (it's not all that easy for them to get to the Mich Ave store when they are trying to catch a Metra train home at the end of the work day. If you are catching the Red Line from Lakeview, you can just as easily go a few more stops, get off at Grand, and it's a short walk to the Mich Ave store. As for pointing out the nearby trendy Bucktown and Wicker Park neighborhoods, as previous posters did, those folks would actually have more convenient access to a State St store via the Blue Line than they would to the North Ave location. The bridges across the Chicago River are bottlenecks to get from those neighborhoods to that location.
Again, it's not a bad location, just wouldn't be my first choice. The new REI store helps expand the demographics the area attracts. If they develop stores that fit Apple's target demographics on the New City YMCA site, that will also help attract more people to view the area as a "destination shopping" location, vs, "I went there because I had to get something specifically from Crate & Barrel." You just don't see people strolling from store to store in that area, they get in, buy their stuff, and get out.
Comments
Umm ... can you have two flagships? Isn't that like pluralizing the Lone Ranger?
No. Look up Flagship Store..n/m I did it for you.
A flagship store, or simply a flagship, is a main store from a retailer designed to serve a mainstream of customers. Most noticeably, flagships are found in prominent shopping districts (e.g., Ginza, Madison Avenue, etc.) that are targets for a main set of worldwide high-income shoppers. Because of this, shopping at an upscale flagship is seen as high social/economic status. Flagships are, as well, larger in retail size (bigger than its retailer's outlets and in mall stores) and hold the most volumes in merchandise. These stores become a more preferred shopping destination for the retailers' goods. Flagships are meant to overshadow its sister stores in its area.
For example, the brand Abercrombie & Fitch holds 359 mall stores in the U.S. and operates two flagships in the country: one on Fifth Avenue and one at The Grove at Farmers Market to serve people on the east coast and the west coast of the U.S. (respectively). The brand also marked expansion into the United Kingdom with a flagship in Savile Row and will add stores around the flagship. Meanwhile, it is preparing to launch a flagship in Ginza to mark Asian expansion.
Many other upscale retailers operate flagships worldwide. This includes but is not limited to the following brands: Prada, Louis Vuitton, Polo Ralph Lauren (which claims its flagship in Tokyo, Japan to be a milestone for the brand), Dior, and The Apple Store among numerous others. The A&F brand, Hollister Co., is slated to open its first flagship by 2009.
Absolutely spot on. The demographics for this site are perfect for Apple. It's in the middle of neighborhoods filled with young, affluent urban professional consumers. It's accessible by road, expressway and rapid transit for people from outside the area, too, with affordable parking that you won't find around Michigan Avenue or State Street. Drive through the area today and you get a vivid impression of the dynamics. The stores are all new construction on repurposed tracts of land. The amount of new and top-shelf residential construction - single and multi-family - is awesome. Smart investors want to grab any home deals they can find in the area right now, because in another year prices will be skyrocketing again. Sure, the diagonal, narrow streets make for lots of traffic congestion, but that's typical of the entire North Side. Borders across the street is a really nice bookstore in new construction, but its problems are the same as the entire Borders chain, which is struggling everywhere. BTW, I live in the suburbs and have no bias or favorites among Chicago neighborhoods. My closest Apple Retail Store is in Oak Brook, where I park in the garage directly underneath it. But looking at the new location objectively, it simply offers premier merchandising opportunities. Expect it to be one of Apple's top grossers.
This is the perfect spot for a new Apple Store. North Avenue has been undergoing a revitalization for some time now and this is only the latest chapter in that. As for all the complaints about traffic congestion, hello people, it's Chicago! You're not in the suburbs anymore so get used to it. Clybourn Ave. already was terrible on the weekends so it's not like a new retail draw is going to make it get any worse than it already was. I live in the Lakeview neighborhood so this will be the store for anyone living on the North Side. The Michigan Ave. location is like many other spots on the Mag Mile; it's there strictly for visibility value and for tourists. As for the the other comments from other threads asking why doesn't Apple just buy the land are absurd. The owners obviously don't want to sell! That land is a literal gold mine and the value will only go up. Finally, all the talk about dubious safety in the area, again, it's the city people. If you can't feel relatively safe on North Avenue and Clybourn then God help you if you find yourself somewhere truly sketchy in Chicago. Bridgeview neighborhood, this means you...
This is the perfect spot for a new Apple Store. North Avenue has been undergoing a revitalization for some time now and this is only the latest chapter in that. As for all the complaints about traffic congestion, hello people, it's Chicago! You're not in the suburbs anymore so get used to it. Clybourn Ave. already was terrible on the weekends so it's not like a new retail draw is going to make it get any worse than it already was. I live in the Lakeview neighborhood so this will be the store for anyone living on the North Side. The Michigan Ave. location is like many other spots on the Mag Mile; it's there strictly for visibility value and for tourists. As for the the other comments from other threads asking why doesn't Apple just buy the land are absurd. The owners obviously don't want to sell! That land is a literal gold mine and the value will only go up. Finally, all the talk about dubious safety in the area, again, it's the city people. If you can't feel relatively safe on North Avenue and Clybourn then God help you if you find yourself somewhere truly sketchy in Chicago. Bridgeview neighborhood, this means you...
I guess I wouldn't say the location is "bad." It's just not nearly as good as a State St location (and therefore not "perfect"). They would have a far larger customer base on State St, namely all the Loop workers (it's not all that easy for them to get to the Mich Ave store when they are trying to catch a Metra train home at the end of the work day. If you are catching the Red Line from Lakeview, you can just as easily go a few more stops, get off at Grand, and it's a short walk to the Mich Ave store. As for pointing out the nearby trendy Bucktown and Wicker Park neighborhoods, as previous posters did, those folks would actually have more convenient access to a State St store via the Blue Line than they would to the North Ave location. The bridges across the Chicago River are bottlenecks to get from those neighborhoods to that location.
Again, it's not a bad location, just wouldn't be my first choice. The new REI store helps expand the demographics the area attracts. If they develop stores that fit Apple's target demographics on the New City YMCA site, that will also help attract more people to view the area as a "destination shopping" location, vs, "I went there because I had to get something specifically from Crate & Barrel." You just don't see people strolling from store to store in that area, they get in, buy their stuff, and get out.