It would encourage sales of larger or heavier items by people who live farther away, especially since this is the only store in Brooklyn.
From a shareholder's perspective, accessible parking will drive far more sales than a multi-million $ glass staircase or special imported granite floors.
And inherently, when Apple opens a mall store, they are providing parking since a share of their rent goes to supporting the parking facilities.
Sales of larger/heavier items doesn't seem to be a problem at other stores without dedicated parking.
It's worth pointing out that Apple's cash cow (generating ~60% of revenue) is the iPhone. Over three-quarters of Macs sold are notebooks.
Actually a multi-million dollar glass staircase in a flagship store actually generates foot traffic, even tourists (like the 5th Avenue store). A parking lot is a lot of potentially expensive real estate for minimal revenue per square foot.
Apple can't ask for a rent discount at a mall store to exclude parking. They don't pay extra for parking, it's included in the rent payment.
Malls operate under city business requirements where the landlord must provide a certain amount of shared parking for the mall patrons who are generally expected to visit multiple retailers, maybe include a meal, movie, etc. If the malls did not provide ample parking, the vehicles would spill out into the surrounding area, possibly eating up a bunch of residential parking spaces. Remember that the mall store's rent is covering part of the parking, but doesn't guarantee spaces for its customers -- it's really an partial easement on shared parking.
Note that in some pedestrian malls/shopping districts, the local regulations may require the business to subsidize parking (like a city lot). That's why you can validate a parking stub. The business is already paying a fee for that parking place your car is occupying; the parking lot owner honors the validation from certain businesses because they know they are getting fees from those businesses.
Apple builds mall stores in areas where there is no downtown commercial shopping district (based on Apple's target demographics). However, their preference is to build in high-traffic, high-density downtown shopping districts.
Again, Apple does not pay for dedicated parking at any of its other stores.
The downside is poor access to public transportation and not good parking, although there seems to be a lot across the street. Apple should buy that lot and provide store visitors with free parking.
Why would they do that? They don't buy their own store parking lots elsewhere. Or is this location so incredibly important and unique that Apple must have their own parking lot, just for this store's customers?
Do you think Apple's shareholders would agree with this strategy?
In Williamsburg it's entirely walking or subways for natives because nearly all don't own cars, the lack of convenient transportation notwithstanding for most of the area. But once you go a little north past Greenpoint you get to Queens neighborhoods, and you lose the industrial aspect and while it's not typical suburbia there are houses on tree lined streets with a place to park the car. And people who live in Astoria or Jackson Heights have no qualms about getting on the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway and taking the 20 minute drive to Williamsburg.
In a nutshell, if they can create a place to park it will always be filled, with folks who wouldn't have come otherwise. Apple may feel they'll get enough business just with those within walking distance, and they may be right. The area is an extremely bustling one, with a huge demographic of 20 - 30 year olds who buy such things. It's not really so much the hipster monodynamic anymore, it's a place young people want to live, even non-hipsters. We have a big "family" vibe here in my neighborhood (Park Slope) and when our kids grow out of the nest they want to move to Willamsburg. We've had a number of businesses leave here and focus on Williamsburg (and Greenpoint) because the vitality there is on a much more youthful level, a great demographic. Going out to bars and clubs, not having mortgage payments. It makes total sense for Apple to be there instead of in a more "adult" area, and it's not a hipster thing.
Apple builds mall stores in areas where there is no downtown commercial shopping district (based on Apple's target demographics). However, their preference is to build in high-traffic, high-density downtown shopping districts.
Again, Apple does not pay for dedicated parking at any of its other stores.
Parking may never be in the cards here but it's a different setting than any other Apple Store I've been to, which have either been in a mall, so it's a given you'll have to drive there and parking is free and plentiful for mall shoppers, or as in Soho NYC, or 14th St or 5th Ave, where there are taxis aplenty but driving there is pretty much out of the question unless you want to spend half of the cost of the iPad you'll buy on a parking garage, if you can even get in one. There's really no reason or opportunity for Apple to make any decision on customer parking. It might exist with this (not that I'm saying what they should do). Maybe there are other Apple Stores that are not part of a shared parking lot and out of the way enough that it might be an instance of the opportunity to do it where they haven't. I haven't seen one like that.
In Baltimore, where my daughter is and she's had to make plenty of trips over the years to the Apple Store in Towson, which is about a 25 minute drive if you have a car (she doesn't) and a 45 minute bus ride, it's in an upscale mall that really seems like a weird and terrible choice of location. Small space no bigger than a Foot Locker (Have always gotten great Genius and customer service help there). But if you're a student in Baltimore and you don't have a car, you ain't going. I searched for some details about it, to find out maybe why they'd stick it in there, and came across this pretty interesting article from the summer.
Interesting that talks fell through to put a Store in Inner Harbor, one reason being the building owner's inability to provide them with the uber high dramatic ceilings they desired, which it sure seems they weren't worrying about when they took the Towson space (nor how awful the food is considering how great it is in Inner Harbor : ) ) but I guess context is everything. I had no idea that they came as close as getting the design for their giant glass cube sculpture ready. The property owner said "The biggest issue with them was that it takes two to three years to make the deal, and it's not like you have a letter of intent. It's a much harder deal than that." So who knows. Maybe they did want to put one up in Park Slope on 5th and Union and the city wouldn't let them stick the big cube on a sidewalk with landmark status, and Williamsburg didn't care. : )
That's a crazy location. Sure, Williamsburg is full of recently arrived painful hipsters and too-cool-for-school visiting Manhattanites, but it's on the periphery of Brooklyn, with lousy transport (the L train, seriously?) that make it easier to reach from Manhattan than from the rest of Brooklyn.
Better locations would've been Fulton Mall (central, rapidly improving shopping district) or even near Barclays Center - both are in the heart of big, affluent population centers (Bklyn Heights, Downtown Bklyn, Park Slope, Fort Green etc) and with much greater transport links.
I'll continue to visit Apple Soho, because it's easier for me to reach (from Brooklyn) than the new location. <span style="line-height:1.4em;">Shame. I guess "cool" won the day again.</span>
Downtown Brooklyn would've made much more sense. There are multiple subway lines plus tons of other retailers. SoHo will still be the fastest option for me. Williamsburg is all trust fund babies, all the cool people are now in Bushwick.
Apple builds mall stores in areas where there is no downtown commercial shopping district (based on Apple's target demographics). However, their preference is to build in high-traffic, high-density downtown shopping districts.
I should amend this to say that Apple will put in a mall store even when an attractive downtown shopping district is available if they project ample sales from the mall store. It's really about revenue, Apple is highly selective about store location.
In Palo Alto, they do both. The downtown Palo Alto store was one of Apple's earliest forays into retail (street parking is available as well as city lots). They eventually opened a mini-store in nearby Stanford Shopping Center that was mostly focused on iPods and eventually iPhones/iPads. New construction took place and eventually another full-fledged Apple Store was built at Stanford (the mini-store was shut down). Naturally there is abundant parking at Apple Store Stanford.
The two stores are a half-mile apart; one with more challenging street parking, one with easy mall parking. They are both packed.
You just might get lucky enough to walk into a music video being filmed without the proper permits.
1) I both love and hate that video. Clearly low-budget but they did a lot with it in that time frame which shows excellent planning which makes it a success. What I disliked most were her subpar dance moves and everyone's apparel. Is that what the kids are wearing these days?
2) The cab — same one used twice for beginning and end — is advertising The Long Ranger coming out on July 3rd but this song/video was released in 2014. My guess is this was filmed in Summer 2013.
3) Is Apple's new Brooklyn building in this video? If so, where?
1) I both love and hate that video. Clearly low-budget but they did a lot with it in that time frame which shows excellent planning which makes it a success. What I disliked most were her subpar dance moves and everyone's apparel. Is that what the kids are wearing these days?
2) The cab — same one used twice for beginning and end — is advertising The Long Ranger coming out on July 3rd but this song/video was released in 2014. My guess is this was filmed in Summer 2013.
3) Is Apple's new Brooklyn building in this video? If so, where?
Good eye catching the Lone Ranger advertisement. Summer 2013 would be my guess as well. I would also guess that it was filmed during the weekend. It's only a few blocks away from where the store is going to be. That area is still very industrial as you can tell from the video, but had the camera panned around you would've seen the new buildings that have gone up in the area. I myself like the video, and the song. It's quite amazing the video quality one can get with which my guess would be a high end consumer video camera.
That's a crazy location. Sure, Williamsburg is full of recently arrived painful hipsters and too-cool-for-school visiting Manhattanites, but it's on the periphery of Brooklyn, with lousy transport (the L train, seriously?) that make it easier to reach from Manhattan than from the rest of Brooklyn.
Better locations would've been Fulton Mall (central, rapidly improving shopping district) or even near Barclays Center - both are in the heart of big, affluent population centers (Bklyn Heights, Downtown Bklyn, Park Slope, Fort Green etc) and with much greater transport links.
I'll continue to visit Apple Soho, because it's easier for me to reach (from Brooklyn) than the new location. <span style="line-height:1.4em;">Shame. I guess "cool" won the day again.</span>
Downtown Brooklyn would've made much more sense. There are multiple subway lines plus tons of other retailers. SoHo will still be the fastest option for me. Williamsburg is all trust fund babies, all the cool people are now in Bushwick.
Good in concept, terrible in reality. The tons of other retailers in Downtown are like chalk and cheese to Apple. CVS? Payless? There's zero synergy. Fulton Mall is about the least Apple place I can imagine. It's like Android Planet. I can't envision a single plot suitable for what Apple wants for a store and what they did in Williamsburg. The only possible location that would fit would be on the other side of Court St, where there are more upscale retailers, but there again the physical options are sub-Apple sizewise and there's not the foot traffic to validate it. It's people on their lunch breaks from jury duty or work for the city or banks coming and going. Dumbo would be better as a Store location, though it's not nearly a busy enough commerce area.
Good in concept, terrible in reality. The tons of other retailers in Downtown are like chalk and cheese to Apple. CVS? Payless? There's zero synergy. Fulton Mall is about the least Apple place I can imagine. It's like Android Planet. I can't envision a single plot suitable for what Apple wants for a store and what they did in Williamsburg. The only possible location that would fit would be on the other side of Court St, where there are more upscale retailers, but there again the physical options are sub-Apple sizewise and there's not the foot traffic to validate it. It's people on their lunch breaks from jury duty or work for the city or banks coming and going. Dumbo would be better as a Store location, though it's not nearly a busy enough commerce area.
Williamsburg was a much better choice by Apple.
The mall across from Barclays. With all the Nets, and soon Islander games there will be a plethora of foot traffic.
The mall across from Barclays. With all the Nets, and soon Islander games there will be a plethora of foot traffic.
That's a disgusting mall and quite downscale compared to the expensive housing nearby. Very un-Apple like. And I actually doubt whether very many people who attend a Nets game or a concert go to the mall before or after.
That's a disgusting mall and quite downscale compared to the expensive housing nearby. Very un-Apple like. And I actually doubt whether very many people who attend a Nets game or a concert go to the mall before or after.
I wouldn't call it disgusting. It is however ripe for some upscale shops to move in with all the foot traffic it sees due to the Nets games, concerts, and soon hockey games.
Comments
It would encourage sales of larger or heavier items by people who live farther away, especially since this is the only store in Brooklyn.
From a shareholder's perspective, accessible parking will drive far more sales than a multi-million $ glass staircase or special imported granite floors.
And inherently, when Apple opens a mall store, they are providing parking since a share of their rent goes to supporting the parking facilities.
Sales of larger/heavier items doesn't seem to be a problem at other stores without dedicated parking.
It's worth pointing out that Apple's cash cow (generating ~60% of revenue) is the iPhone. Over three-quarters of Macs sold are notebooks.
Actually a multi-million dollar glass staircase in a flagship store actually generates foot traffic, even tourists (like the 5th Avenue store). A parking lot is a lot of potentially expensive real estate for minimal revenue per square foot.
Apple can't ask for a rent discount at a mall store to exclude parking. They don't pay extra for parking, it's included in the rent payment.
Malls operate under city business requirements where the landlord must provide a certain amount of shared parking for the mall patrons who are generally expected to visit multiple retailers, maybe include a meal, movie, etc. If the malls did not provide ample parking, the vehicles would spill out into the surrounding area, possibly eating up a bunch of residential parking spaces. Remember that the mall store's rent is covering part of the parking, but doesn't guarantee spaces for its customers -- it's really an partial easement on shared parking.
Note that in some pedestrian malls/shopping districts, the local regulations may require the business to subsidize parking (like a city lot). That's why you can validate a parking stub. The business is already paying a fee for that parking place your car is occupying; the parking lot owner honors the validation from certain businesses because they know they are getting fees from those businesses.
Apple builds mall stores in areas where there is no downtown commercial shopping district (based on Apple's target demographics). However, their preference is to build in high-traffic, high-density downtown shopping districts.
Again, Apple does not pay for dedicated parking at any of its other stores.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/247 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211/@40.7156018,-73.960119,3a,52.5y,77.95h,92.54t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sJphZViFCbfCMK77KPo6n3Q!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x89c259609f30e6e7:0x61262e755a8212fb!6m1!1e1
The downside is poor access to public transportation and not good parking, although there seems to be a lot across the street. Apple should buy that lot and provide store visitors with free parking.
Why would they do that? They don't buy their own store parking lots elsewhere. Or is this location so incredibly important and unique that Apple must have their own parking lot, just for this store's customers?
Do you think Apple's shareholders would agree with this strategy?
In Williamsburg it's entirely walking or subways for natives because nearly all don't own cars, the lack of convenient transportation notwithstanding for most of the area. But once you go a little north past Greenpoint you get to Queens neighborhoods, and you lose the industrial aspect and while it's not typical suburbia there are houses on tree lined streets with a place to park the car. And people who live in Astoria or Jackson Heights have no qualms about getting on the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway and taking the 20 minute drive to Williamsburg.
In a nutshell, if they can create a place to park it will always be filled, with folks who wouldn't have come otherwise. Apple may feel they'll get enough business just with those within walking distance, and they may be right. The area is an extremely bustling one, with a huge demographic of 20 - 30 year olds who buy such things. It's not really so much the hipster monodynamic anymore, it's a place young people want to live, even non-hipsters. We have a big "family" vibe here in my neighborhood (Park Slope) and when our kids grow out of the nest they want to move to Willamsburg. We've had a number of businesses leave here and focus on Williamsburg (and Greenpoint) because the vitality there is on a much more youthful level, a great demographic. Going out to bars and clubs, not having mortgage payments. It makes total sense for Apple to be there instead of in a more "adult" area, and it's not a hipster thing.
Welcome to Brooklyn Apple!
From your friends at The Mac Support Store.
http://www.macsupportstore.com
Apple builds mall stores in areas where there is no downtown commercial shopping district (based on Apple's target demographics). However, their preference is to build in high-traffic, high-density downtown shopping districts.
Again, Apple does not pay for dedicated parking at any of its other stores.
Parking may never be in the cards here but it's a different setting than any other Apple Store I've been to, which have either been in a mall, so it's a given you'll have to drive there and parking is free and plentiful for mall shoppers, or as in Soho NYC, or 14th St or 5th Ave, where there are taxis aplenty but driving there is pretty much out of the question unless you want to spend half of the cost of the iPad you'll buy on a parking garage, if you can even get in one. There's really no reason or opportunity for Apple to make any decision on customer parking. It might exist with this (not that I'm saying what they should do). Maybe there are other Apple Stores that are not part of a shared parking lot and out of the way enough that it might be an instance of the opportunity to do it where they haven't. I haven't seen one like that.
In Baltimore, where my daughter is and she's had to make plenty of trips over the years to the Apple Store in Towson, which is about a 25 minute drive if you have a car (she doesn't) and a 45 minute bus ride, it's in an upscale mall that really seems like a weird and terrible choice of location. Small space no bigger than a Foot Locker (Have always gotten great Genius and customer service help there). But if you're a student in Baltimore and you don't have a car, you ain't going. I searched for some details about it, to find out maybe why they'd stick it in there, and came across this pretty interesting article from the summer.
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/blog/real-estate/2014/08/apple-had-serious-discussions-about-opening-an.html?page=all
Interesting that talks fell through to put a Store in Inner Harbor, one reason being the building owner's inability to provide them with the uber high dramatic ceilings they desired, which it sure seems they weren't worrying about when they took the Towson space (nor how awful the food is considering how great it is in Inner Harbor : ) ) but I guess context is everything. I had no idea that they came as close as getting the design for their giant glass cube sculpture ready. The property owner said "The biggest issue with them was that it takes two to three years to make the deal, and it's not like you have a letter of intent. It's a much harder deal than that." So who knows. Maybe they did want to put one up in Park Slope on 5th and Union and the city wouldn't let them stick the big cube on a sidewalk with landmark status, and Williamsburg didn't care. : )
[VIDEO]
You just might get lucky enough to walk into a music video being filmed without the proper permits.
Downtown Brooklyn would've made much more sense. There are multiple subway lines plus tons of other retailers. SoHo will still be the fastest option for me. Williamsburg is all trust fund babies, all the cool people are now in Bushwick.
Apple builds mall stores in areas where there is no downtown commercial shopping district (based on Apple's target demographics). However, their preference is to build in high-traffic, high-density downtown shopping districts.
I should amend this to say that Apple will put in a mall store even when an attractive downtown shopping district is available if they project ample sales from the mall store. It's really about revenue, Apple is highly selective about store location.
In Palo Alto, they do both. The downtown Palo Alto store was one of Apple's earliest forays into retail (street parking is available as well as city lots). They eventually opened a mini-store in nearby Stanford Shopping Center that was mostly focused on iPods and eventually iPhones/iPads. New construction took place and eventually another full-fledged Apple Store was built at Stanford (the mini-store was shut down). Naturally there is abundant parking at Apple Store Stanford.
The two stores are a half-mile apart; one with more challenging street parking, one with easy mall parking. They are both packed.
I wish Apple to expand its empire to Greece too and stop having resellers here!
1) I both love and hate that video. Clearly low-budget but they did a lot with it in that time frame which shows excellent planning which makes it a success. What I disliked most were her subpar dance moves and everyone's apparel. Is that what the kids are wearing these days?
2) The cab — same one used twice for beginning and end — is advertising The Long Ranger coming out on July 3rd but this song/video was released in 2014. My guess is this was filmed in Summer 2013.
3) Is Apple's new Brooklyn building in this video? If so, where?
Good eye catching the Lone Ranger advertisement. Summer 2013 would be my guess as well. I would also guess that it was filmed during the weekend. It's only a few blocks away from where the store is going to be. That area is still very industrial as you can tell from the video, but had the camera panned around you would've seen the new buildings that have gone up in the area. I myself like the video, and the song. It's quite amazing the video quality one can get with which my guess would be a high end consumer video camera.
If it were 1984 that video would have won awards.
In 1984 they would've gotten robbed of the video equipment midway through filming.
Good in concept, terrible in reality. The tons of other retailers in Downtown are like chalk and cheese to Apple. CVS? Payless? There's zero synergy. Fulton Mall is about the least Apple place I can imagine. It's like Android Planet. I can't envision a single plot suitable for what Apple wants for a store and what they did in Williamsburg. The only possible location that would fit would be on the other side of Court St, where there are more upscale retailers, but there again the physical options are sub-Apple sizewise and there's not the foot traffic to validate it. It's people on their lunch breaks from jury duty or work for the city or banks coming and going. Dumbo would be better as a Store location, though it's not nearly a busy enough commerce area.
Williamsburg was a much better choice by Apple.
The mall across from Barclays. With all the Nets, and soon Islander games there will be a plethora of foot traffic.
That's a disgusting mall and quite downscale compared to the expensive housing nearby. Very un-Apple like. And I actually doubt whether very many people who attend a Nets game or a concert go to the mall before or after.
I wouldn't call it disgusting. It is however ripe for some upscale shops to move in with all the foot traffic it sees due to the Nets games, concerts, and soon hockey games.