“Attention local urban sophisticates! You will not be able to visit an Apple Store in the District of Columbia anytime soon!” Mike DeBonis blogs for Washinton City Paper
“That scoop comes courtesy of the underappreciated, under-Webbed Current newspapers, which explained in last week’s editions that plans for the District’s first Apple Store are held up in a thicket of regulatory approvals, from the Georgetown advisory neighborhood commission and the Old Georgetown Board,” DeBonis reports.
“Earlier this month, both bodies rejected Apple’s design—the third the company had submitted for the property at 1229 Wisconsin Ave. NW, a Georgetown storefront the company has owned for more than a year—because, as the Current’s Carol Buckley puts it, it ‘would not fit into Georgetown,'” DeBonis reports.
“The Current describes said design as such: “a glass first story with a solid stone upper facade punctuated by a large window shaped like Apple’s logo.” The Old Georgetown Board, charged with preserving historic preservation standards, ‘felt that the design turned the building into a billboard,’ according to a spokesperson. The ANC, charged with being parochial nitwits, raised concerns that the latest design was ‘too modern,'” DeBonis reports.
Full article here.
Good, D.C. doesn’t deserve an Apple Store.
As a DC resident who lives in Georgetown I am again disappointed with the DC government. This sucks. There are NO Apple stores in the District.
D.C. only gives approval for projects involving free money for really bad baseball teams from Montreal owned by billionaires, haven’t you heard?
A country with 233 year history worried about preserving historical buildings. If it was Chichenitza, Giza or a Roman aqueduct we are talking about, I would be worried but a 180 year old building, if that, has little historical value. Maybe if we wait 5000 more years.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
Ehh, the Pentagon City, Clarendon, and Bethesda stores are all on the subway. Georgetown isn’t. Once again D.C. shows why the suburbs are the real cities.
Sarasota writes, “Good, D.C. doesn’t deserve an Apple Store.” Well, nuts to you! Not only do we deserve such a store, but it would benefit Apple’s penetration here.
When I first heard of plans for that Georgetown store, I wondered WTF! Georgetown is perhaps the *worst* place to put such a store. There’s no Metro to Georgetown, parking is sparse, and there’s little beyond small shops and clubs. The only location in that neighborhood that makes any sense is the Georgetown Mall, which at least has indoor parking (though traffic to reach it flows like molasses).
A better location would be downtown, near Metro Center or Gallery Place. Lots of people with discretionary income (attorneys, lobbyists, government officials, foundation types), lots of post-university types in easy walking distance, foot traffic even into evening hours. Walk out on your lunch break, come back with new Apple kit. And no problem with “historic preservation” types.
Sarasota should look deep inside his/her miserable soul before passing judgment on an entire metro area.
Too many robberies in D.C. anyway. Public schools cost more than anywhere else in the US and graduate the least. Pray it never becomes a state. Corrupt government leaking our tax dollars.
No sense in acquiring any Apple products if you can’t keep them.
Get a handgun first, and say to hell with that piece of crap mayor.
to a point I agree….I have also seen lots of junkie buildings kept in place because they are historic….there is something to be said for looking to the FUTURE!!!
Oh well. And here I was hoping for some more photo ops of politicians with Apple products.
If you go to the original Current newspapers article (the one cited by the MDN linked article), the locals approve of this denial.
Apple logo shaped windows? Puh-leeze! Apple has more class than that.
Maybe if we wait 5000 more years.
Considering someone’s gonna have to monitor our nuclear waste for the next 10,000 years or so, they might as well keep tabs on our historic places.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
@Ron and Shame-
You must not be residents of the District – your ignorance of even the simplest facts are evidence of this. What year are you living in? We’ve elected 2 fantastic mayors since Barry’s reign and the crime rate has gone down. And talk about cities spending money on stadiums – wake up. It happens – and will happen – in any major city that has a team. Why would you wish for ANY city to NOT have an Apple Store? True, I go to Clarendon or Pentahon City, but G’twn is often convenient for a lot of us locals – especially during business hours. And G’twn is a tourist hotspot and would bring some nice scratch to Apple’s coffers.
I have to agree with Georgetown on this one. I’m one of those keep-it-historic types and if Apple can’t fall in line with that, then they better go find some other venue in DC. Apple should be able to appease with a good clean yet historic design.