Some of you probably recall our rumor from back in March about an Apple Store coming to Charlottesville. While we don’t have any more concrete evidence, we did hear through the grapevine that two certain Apple store executives were surprised when one of our informants asked them about the gossip.
Their response: “We can’t comment on upcoming stores until a certain date.” When pushed they did seem a little surprised at our knowledge of the “omni meeting.” The informant was convinced that cVillain spilled the beans, and, indeed, there is an Apple store coming to Charlottesville.
Anyway, for the 50% of you that have to drive to Richmond to fix your computers, this should be good news. Anyone have an in with the real estate folks? They have got to be thinking about putting the store on the Downtown Mall, but maybe you know better.
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Tagged as: Apple, Charlottesville, mac, Retail, rumor, Store
we have informants.
they should put it in the place of the satellite ballroom.
informants, thieves, nuns, spies, babies, gods, birds, hussies, yuppies, and velociraptors - we have them all
I don’t even know how to turn on a PC. Never had one. Since I was 12 always used a Mac. Bring it on!
Can I be a velociraptor? Being a god is SO last night. oops, sorry Thor.
As much as I’d love to see it, I will bet $5 against anybody that we will not see an Apple Store in Charlottesville in the next year. It just doesn’t fit in with their M.O.
I would imagine it closer to the university than to downtown, no?
@6 I think Cville does fit in with their M.O.
look at all the people in the music industry here, college town, $$$ town. Look around you at the coffee shops, I see more people with macbooks
/wait, what is their M.O.?
@8 I have several reasons for believing this.
1) Location: Every Apple Store in the country has something in common. They are all located in relatively high end shopping centers with a high volume of retail foot traffic. Short Pump, Tyson’s Corner, and Fair Oaks are the three I can name in Virginia. Where would they put one in Charlottesville? Whenever anyone I know has money burning a hole in their pocket, they hop in the car and drive to Richmond. Apple is not going to put one on the DTM and share a street with a CVS, pawn shop, and vendors hocking silver and scarves. This isn’t a personal issue I have with the DTM. I love it, and I chose to have an office there. It’s just that Apple thinks of itself as a high-end brand, and they will want to be surrounded by other high-end brands. The other option is Barracks, which I think fits them more than the DTM, but I still don’t think it’s high end enough.
2) UVA: I’d say a huge majority of Apple products in use in the area are affiliated with the university. They can all take their machines in to CavComp and get similar service to that of the Genius Bar without the wait. In fact, an Apple Store would be in competition with CavComp. While Apple had no problem pissing off a lot of their retailers when they started opening the Apple Stores, I’m guessing they’ll tread a little more carefully with a large institution.
3) Best Buy: If you’ve been in the computer section in Best Buy recently, you’ve seen the mini-Apple Store they have in the back. Macs are all out on display, and I think they even have an Apple Employee staffing the area during peak hours. Charlottesville was in the first round of Best Buys to get one of these. That’s 50 stores out of 820 Best Buy’s nationwide. While they are expanding the program, they still put one in Cville first. I don’t perceive that as a sign that they don’t intend to open their own store here. (I do see how you could just as easily say that they are testing the waters).
2 and 3 are more are less my interpretation of things. I think Location is the biggest issue with Apple coming to Charlottesville. I just don’t see them looking at any part of Charlottesville and deeming it worthy of an Apple Store. That may change if we see more retail development up 29 or if Albemarle Place gets resurrected or something. Given a choice between the DTM, Barracks, and Fashion Square, I just don’t see us getting an Apple Store anytime soon.
I’d love to be wrong though (and I often am)…
well let’s make a bet then anoop, cause I think apple’s coming dude.
/will only go if they sell braebrurn, granny smith or fuji. red delicious = overrated
I LOVE Caroline!
aww i luh you too silm
#9 Anoop, that’s what I’m talking about. Nice post and excellent analysis. People forget how really freaking small this town really is. Only 40,000 in the city which is almost exactly the same as it was in the year of my birth 1971. Obviously the counties around here have grown exponentially, but we are still small as hell. Bring on the Mac’s!
This site has more info than you want to know (probably).
about the stores in general:
http://www.ifoapplestore.com/the_stores.html
about how locations are chosen:
http://www.ifoapplestore.com/stores/chronology.html
I think a store downtown would be great, but that’s ultimately up to Apple. If I had to guess, I would guess that C-ville has a very high mac/ipod/iphone per capita. Ditto itunes usage per capita. And having UVA here has got to be a good thing too.
Hmm. Apologies if this is double posted…
More than you want to know:
http://www.ifoapplestore.com/stores/chronology.html
Future store criteria:
http://www.ifoapplestore.com/stores/future_stores.html
Dan, UVA is 25% Apple Computer Users; this site is 50% Apple Computer Users.
http://cvillain.com/2008/03/21/uva-students-are-mac-lovershow-about-you/
It’s debatable which I care less about: Satellite leaving or an Apple store in town.
You guys are aware you can order things off the ‘internet’? I didn’t know if you knew about this:
http://store.apple.com/us
Cool data point Thor. I think UVA students are probably some of Apple’s target customer (young people, with ipods, who use PCs, and who will probably be buying a new computer soon).
Also, I’m downtown more than I’m not, but the downtown coffeehouse/patio crowd seems to have more Macs than PCs.
I meant a pole shen,flooz,car0line,UVAlagr,thor,silm,yo,
/not knows what huh?ing
//drinks in morning
///at night.
@18 um, cbob, if something goes wrong with your mac you have to take it to richmond, it would be nice to have a store (Genius Bar) in charlottesville for that reason. I think we all know you can order things off the internets
What’s the internet?
@14 Dan, there is no such thing as a “cool” data point.
Mac…uck. Why don’t we all just start using AOL too. Did I mention uck?!
AOL is based in the worst place in Northern VA which is certainly fucking saying something…The Dulles Corridor. Do folks still actually have AOL situations going on? Boy I hope not… Couple of years ago I had a flight going of of Dulles airport and I sat next to Steve Case in his Ferrari in the very next lane at a red light that seemed to stay crimson for several minutes. Man, I wish I’d had the balls to roll down my window and tell ole Stev-O that I think he hair might be purchased from the same jackleg web site that Dennis Rooker buys his locks… I just looked at him an smiled with a cheshire cat smile. I didn’t say it, maybe next time…
Karma got me for not saying anything, and my flight to Denver was delayed for five hours…
An old man and too much wine. / sorry for the last post wrought with grammatical errors!
Apple has stores in places like San Luis Obispo, a smaller university town than CHO, so it’s not out of the question. Apple Stores have really powerful WiFi, so Parlie should ask his informants to have the Charlottesville Apple Store installed centrally on the Downtown Mall so we can all cockroach their wireless.
PS- For all you lonely hearts out there, an Apple Stores is a great place to pick up cute chicks who can actually read and are intelligent enough to click a mouse. My home away from home when travelling…
“actually read and are intelligent enough to click a mouse”
not the one in miami.
@27- Orchid, you are right. Cute girls are required to be lobotomized to enter Miami.
Hey, wait a minute… YOU have been to the Apple Store in Miami…
THAT must be why i’m having such a hard time writing this paper.
Wot you paper about? Post the topic on this here Spunky Bear blog and mebbe you can get some help spunking it up!
@30 i already have, i believe in free-for-all 2.0.
@31- ha ha, that was a long time ago! Wot, you waited until the last minute and now you’re having a bad time writing your paper? I never heard that one before…
@32 it isn’t the last minute for another 27 hours, thank you very much.
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