Tag: apple store

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Apple Store Rebuked For Georgetown, Again

We wrote earlier about the Apple store design for Georgetown being rejected. The Washington Post writes that it just happened again:

An architectural review board yesterday ordered Apple to redraw plans for a store in Georgetown, the fourth time it has rejected the company’s submission.

The Old Georgetown Board told Apple’s architect that it is eager for the store to open on Wisconsin Avenue. But the three members, all architects, expressed disappointment that Apple keeps proposing a design that they have criticized.

In the latest rendering, Apple proposed a storefront that is a 35-foot-wide pane of glass with a door. During previous rounds, the board said that was inconsistent with neighboring properties’ detailing and bay windows. “We’re frustrated a little bit because we haven’t gotten a response to our fairly consistent request,” board member David Cox told Apple’s architect, Karl Backus.

Backus assured the board that Apple is not “purposefully ignoring your suggestions,” although he noted that a glass expanse is standard for many of the company’s storefronts, symbolizing its belief in transparency. Still, he said he would return with a new design proposal that would incorporate the board’s suggestions.

Apple’s struggles to win the board’s support have fueled concerns among merchants and city officials over how long the company is taking to open a store that it began planning at least two years ago.

Neil O. Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, said in a statement that “we’re extremely disappointed with today’s decision.”

“The community and the Fenty administration are very supportive of this retailer opening its Georgetown store,” he said. “I’ll move quickly to convene separate meetings with the Old Georgetown Board and Apple representatives to reach a consensus design.”

Amy Bessette, an Apple spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that the company remains committed to “bringing the unique Apple retail experience to Georgetown.”

In 2007, Apple paid more than $13 million for the three-story building on Wisconsin Avenue. The building is 24 years old but it is within a historic district with buildings more than 100 years old.
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Apple plans to raze the building and put up a store, joining 251 retail outlets it has around the world, including five in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

But first it must win the approval of the Old Georgetown Board, which is overseen by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

Apple submitted its first renderings to the board in September 2007, a two-story building with five windows across the second floor and an expansive show window. The board told Apple that the ground-floor window was out of scale with neighboring storefronts.

After the Old Georgetown Board asked for revisions, Apple returned with two more modern versions, and both were rejected.

The renderings the company displayed yesterday were largely indistinguishable from the first round.

At yesterday’s hearing, Stephen J. Vanze, an Old Georgetown Board member, told Apple’s representatives that he was feeling pressure at home to approve Apple’s plans.

“My daughter said, ‘We better get an Apple store in Georgetown,’ and I better make her happy,” he said.

But Vanze reminded the audience that the board’s sole mission is to “review design issues.”

“For us to do our job, we need to protect the street,” he told Apple’s architect. “We want to help you do this. Again, we ask you to modulate the glass.”

After the meeting, Backus said he hoped to return with a new design next month. “We don’t want to drag this out further,” he said.

While the District of Columbia still has no Apple stores, there are many Apple stores in the D.C. metro area in nearby Virginia (two stores in Arlington, one in Fairfax, and one in McLean, VA) and Maryland (two stores in Bethesda and one in Columbia, MD).

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Problems Opening an Apple Store In D.C.

According to the Georgetown Current, Apple has been trying to open a new store in Georgetown since 2007 but has been having problems getting its designs through local review.

Apple Inc. claims design geeks as well as computer snobs among its fans, and the company’s storefronts are hallowed ground for those who worship form as much as function.

But Apple’s design credentials seem to hold little sway in Georgetown. Although the company has owned a Georgetown location at 1229 Wisconsin Ave. for more than a year and has approval to demolish the existing structure there, D.C. has yet to get its first Apple store. Moreover, recent delays suggest the wait is far from over.

At its Dec. 2 meeting, the Georgetown advisory neighborhood commission rejected the third consecutive proposal from the California-based store, and the Old Georgetown Board did the same at its meeting two days later.

Planners had hoped the third time would be the charm: “Steve saw this design and really loves it,” said project manager Carrie Johnson, referring to Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Commissioners disagreed with Jobs and claimed the design – a glass first story with a solid-stone upper facade punctuated by a large window shaped like Apple’s logo – would not fit into Georgetown.

Old Georgetown Board members agreed, said board spokesperson Tom Luebke. “The board felt that the design turned the building into a billboard,” he said.

Other board criticisms have been constants since September 2007, when Apple presented its first design, a glass lower story and an upper story that featured punched windows.

“That first time, like every time after, it was a question of scale,” said Luebke. The board wanted something to break up the unrelieved expanse of glass, but Apple returned in the summer of 2008 with an all-glass facade.

“The board wanted something less autonomous, something that supports the historic district,” said Luebke. And again, there was the question of scale.

Although the complaint that the most recent iteration was “too modern” did surface at the neighborhood commission meeting, the moreauthoritative Old Georgetown Board told Apple that a “modern treatment is possible,” according to Luebke.

“They’re not against modern design,” he said of the board.

Another worry has been the one-story approach to the building, formerly the site of a French Connection UK store.

“It didn’t seem that one-story occupancy is an enlightened idea for smart growth in Georgetown,” said Luebke.

Apple Inc. did not return calls for comment.

The brand has had success placing stores in historic and culturally important spots other than Georgetown. A brief survey of existing storefronts, however, shows that Apple’s proposals for the D.C. site more closely echo newer, suburban Apple stores than, for example, the company’s stores on Regent Street in London or in SoHo in New York City.

Those latter stores’ facades, however, were historically protected and therefore retained, while the Wisconsin Avenue site will be demolished.

But Apple will somehow have to adjust its design to its surroundings if it wants to proceed, said Luebke. “So far,” he said, “there has been very little context of the historic district.”

While we wait for the first Washington D.C. store to open, there are many other Apple stores in the D.C. metro area in nearby Virginia (two stores in Arlington, one in Fairfax, and one in McLean, VA) and Maryland (two stores in Bethesda and one in Columbia, MD).