14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is overhauling its flagship retail store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, according to documents discovered at New York City’s Department of Buildings.
Permits issued by the city’s Department of Buildings reveal plans to completely remove the glass and its sophisticated connection hardware, as well as to upgrade the surrounding plaza structure, a move that will cost Apple over six and a half million dollars.
Specifically, the work will focus around installing new pavers around the cube’s perimeter, and new surrounding water drains. All this would be finished by November, according to the permits.
ifoAppleStore, a source that deals exclusively with information on Apple’s retail organization, offers a link to the actual permits in PDF format.
The document describes Apple’s plans in detail, and includes a breakdown of the costs for the entire project.
Perhaps it is worth noting that Apple is also known to have scheduled the opening of a new retail store in New York City’s Grand Central Station.
This one is said to become the biggest of all Apple stores, and it may just be that Apple does’t want to take the spotlight away from its iconic cube with the opening of another big store in the same city.
There is a good chance there is nothing wrong with the glass cube on Fifth Avenue, as some have speculated.
Instead, Apple may simply want to adopt new technologies and perhaps new materials that will make the structure more resistant over time.
I would go as far as to speculate that Steve Jobs loves his glass cube on Fifth Ave. so much that he wants it to become a historical monument capable of lasting there for decades (maybe centuries) to come.
What are your thoughts on this?