“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.
@Applejack
You sir, stand corrected. Glendale CA, store 001, was officially the very first Apple store, as per Apple, Inc.
@lurker
LOL!
Been in DC area going on 30 years and Georgetown would be the last location to consider – too close to the easily accessible Clarendon store, no metro, no parking, too much congestion… Union Station, Gallery Place, baseball stadium, even Adams Morgan are much better locations than the stuck up, drunken traffic jam of Georgetown. Georgetown might have been “cool” ten years ago, now it’s just another dead neighborhood with it’s hand out. Perfect location for a Microsoft store front.
Wow! There’s so much hate for DC here! Remember, regular people live in the city too, not just politicians and lobbyists. I love living in DC and have been a resident since 1987.
But I will agree that the Georgetown neighborhood is a terrible location for an Apple store (and I am a Georgetown University alum who knows the area very well). Apple would be *much* better served by opening a store in GalleryPlace/Chinatown/Penn Quarter which has ridiculous amounts of foot traffic with all the museums, trendy restaurants, new shops, and new condos — not to mention the Verizon Center anchor that made all that prosperity happen. Apple lost an opportunity when AT&T;took over the Benneton space right above the Metro entrance, but it would work even better in the Urban Outfitters space on 7th Street nearby.
@MacBliss
Oh yeah — the first Apple store to open was the Tyson’s Corner store in northern Virginia (suburban DC). It may not be store #001 but, because it is on the East Coast, it opened a few hours before the Glendale, CA store.
Apple, get a clue. Get a spot in the Crystal City mall and rake in the customers. Right on the Metro, good dining and sports bars just out the back door.
Lease the Georgetown property to someone else for a few years until the membership of the Georgetown ANC and the Old Georgetown Board changes. Then build it.
“History” is just another excuse for the weak-minded to live in a fantasy world while ignoring the real world in the present.
Design Nazis are just as bad. Apple went through hell satisfying the control freak rednecks in Germantown, TN (just east of Memphis), and Portland, OR totally denied a permit for an Apple store it the NW district. They lose.