Apple finalizes NYC lease

Apple has finalized the deal for another , which is expected to open in the spring of 2006. The company was able to finalize the lease for "sprawling subterranean store" in the GM building, after landlord Harry Macklowe promised Steve Jobs he could take his large $9 million glass cube with him at the end of the lease, according to New York Magazine. The report says that Jobs personally designed the 32-foot-by-32-foot box that will mark the store’s entrance on the Fifth Avenue plaza and that the structure became the sticking point at the last minute, as the developer wanted the structure to stay put; however, a compromise was reached to bring Apple to the mid-town location.

"Steve Jobs felt that he created the cube so he owned it," says Apple broker Robert Futterman, noting that Macklowe wanted it to stay put. "At the eleventh hour, that was the biggest issue." Apple was being aggressively courted by Macklowe for the prime retail location. The developer flew out to out to California twice and offered the lease for well below market rent of $1,000 per square foot for the 24,000-square-foot store. At the end of the twenty-year lease, Jobs must replace the cube with a comparable structure before hauling it off, according to NYM.

Earlier today, we noted retail openings of three international stores and three upcoming stores in the US.

by MacNN Staff