“Note to all lease applicants: An Apple Store is strongly preferred,” James Covert reports for The New York Post.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, it is and as it should be. The world’s number one retailer increases foot traffic in all areas where they open a store, benefitting adjacent businesses in significant fashion.
“The Metropolitan Transportation Authority gave the iPad maker an unfair edge last year as Apple ruthlessly bid for its prime retail perch overlooking Grand Central Terminal, according to a scathing new report obtained by The Post,” Covert reports. “A fresh audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says the MTA last May allowed the California-based tech giant to set a daunting hurdle for rival bidders to clear in a tight, 30-day window — namely, that they be willing to front $5 million in cash. ‘The competitive process followed by MTA… was at a minimum severely slanted toward Apple,’ reads the report, submitted to MTA officials Friday and expected to be made public today.”
“Apple’s chic open-air shop has been mobbed with commuters and tourists since it opened last December, and it is expected to rake in hundreds of millions in revenue annually,” Covert reports. “MTA officials blasted the report, accusing DiNapoli’s office of ‘overt bias against the MTA and Apple… This audit is not fact-based, and, accordingly, their opinion is worthless,. MTA Chairman and CEO Joseph Lhota said in a statement. ‘The MTA’s lease process with Apple was open, transparent and followed both the spirit and letter of the law.’ MTA officials said Apple is paying $1.1 million in rent this year — four times what [the previous tenant] had been paying.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re shocked. Shocked that a quasi-governmental public corp. like the MTA has such sound judgement, especially one that is currently mired in $31 billion in debt and suffered from a $900 million gap in its 2011 operating budget. They obviously need to do everything they can to get people onboard their transit systems. Landing as many Apple Stores as possible should be a priority, especially when Apple pays four times the rent than the previous tenant which generated a tiny fraction of Apple Store’s foot traffic.
Apple Retail Stores generate their own rising tide which lifts all boats.
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