Apple looking at opening retail store in Grand Central Station

According to Monday's Wall Street Journal, Apple is considering opening a 15,000 square foot Apple Store in New York's Grand Central Station. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been seeking a single tenant for adjacent balconies on the north and east side of the building. The WSJ says that the MTA will issue a request for proposals today.

Currently, celebrity chef Charlie Palmer's Métrazur restaurant occupies one of the balconies, but he plans on closing the eatery on July 1st despite holding a lease that runs until 2019. Anyone using that location would have to pay the chef a fairly large sum of money to use the location prior to the end of the lease. The chef told the business paper that it would be hard to refuse such a large offer for the space. Currently, Mr. Palmer pays $400,000 a year for the location-a price considered a bargain since the lease was signed in 1998, just after the building was renovated.

Apple currently has four retail locations in Manhattan and at 15,200 square feet, the area would be smaller than Apple's other stores. Another potential roadblock is that considering the locations landmark status in the city, any cosmetic changes made to the building need to be approved by the Landmarks Preservation Committee.

Experts say that if Apple does open a store at Grand Central Station, the number of people that pass the location daily would soon make it the most popular of the manufacturer's retail outlets, even surpassing the flagship 24 hour store in front of the GM building on Fifth Avenue.

source: WSJ via BGR