14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has been trying to "raise" an Apple Store in Paris, France, for quite some time now. Although it has had little luck with that in the past, it now seems that city officials are finally approving the company's location proposals.
"Apple's long-time plan to open a store in Paris is finally taking shape, after Paris planning officials approved the company's proposal to locate in the underground Carousel de Louvre shopping mall," ifoAppleStore is reporting.
The folks dealing with everything Apple Store are quoting La Tribune reports (explained by the MacGeneration website), which said Apple would occupy about 7,770 square-feet formerly assigned to the Lalique and R?sonnance stores. The store will be located mere steps away from the entrance to the Louvre Museum. According to the stats, the mall gets around 9 million visitors a year, of which some 40 percent are only the tourists (who just love to stop by and grab an iPod shuffle for the sake of it).
The Apple store will occupy two spaces, if we're going to go by this "upside-down glass pyramid." It will indeed be very close to the museum's entrance, as shown in the diagram as well. All of the spaces shown are underground, according to ifoAppleStore.
Recently, Apple has been faced with having to revise its plans of building a retail store in Ridgeland, Mississippi. The city's architectural review board noted, a couple of weeks ago, that the storefront "did not transition well" with other storefronts in the surrounding area. The board rejected the original design plans. Therefore Apple has two options now: either move the new retail store to another location, meaning anywhere besides the previously-established Renaissance at Colony Park shopping mall, or present the city's architectural counsel with a new design. But that's their business. Ours is to shop in them or, as the case may be, to talk about them.
The "Carousel de Louvre" Apple Store is likely to open its doors in Spring 2009.