Apple plans to open a bigger retail store at Bellevue Square this Saturday, moving to a new location in the mall. They’re hosting a grand reopening ceremony on Saturday at 9:30 a.m., giving away T-shirts to the first 1,000 guests. (What, no Miley Cyrus tickets like when Microsoft opened its store at the mall?)
The new store will be in a different location, presumably no longer within spitting distance of the Microsoft store which opened in 2010. An Apple representative declined to tell us exactly where the new store is located, so I guess you’ll have the joy of wandering the mall on Saturday morning trying to find it. Redmond Patch speculates that it could be next to Papyrus where renovation work is ongoing. (Update: We’re told the store will be at 213 Bellevue Square, up one floor and to the left of the current location).
Anyway, all of this chatter about a new Apple store, got me wondering: When is Apple going to open in downtown Seattle? The iPad and iPhone maker already has a store at University Village, located across the parking lot from the Microsoft Store.
But we’ve heard rumblings for months now that Apple has been scouting locations in the downtown core. One real estate source tells us that Apple is considering space in Westlake Center, where Nordstrom Rack moved to much fanfare earlier this year.
Stay tuned. Apple fanboys and fangirls in the “206” may just have to keep hitting the University Village store for a bit longer.
