Chicago's New Riverfront Apple Store (Or, Uh, 'Town Square') Opens Next Month

By Stephen Gossett in News on Sep 12, 2017 11:27PM

Apple has kept a pretty tight lid on details about its upcoming flagship riverfront store ever since the project was revealed, back in 2015. But now we officially have a welcome date. On Oct. 20, Chicago will get to meet its much-anticipated new Apple store. Wait, sorry, not "store." It won't be anything so quotidian as a "store," it will be a "town square"—which is what our tech-hardware overloads now call their structures formerly known as stores.

Apple spilled both bits of news at its big announcement event—which apparently also had some reveals in terms of new iPhones, watches, Apple TV updates and something called animoji. Along with new stores (sorry, old habits) in Paris and Milan, plus a New York location redo, the upcoming Chicago spot—along the Chicago River, near Michigan Avenue—represents the company's next big phase in terms of actual physical footprint.

As for the new lingo, Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts said at the event, via Slate: “We actually don’t call them stores anymore. We call them town squares, because they’re gathering places for the 500 million people who visit us every year. Places where everyone’s welcome, and where all of Apple comes together." We're getting fuzzy, civic-corporate feelings already.

While that vintage-style tech-utopia speak might risk getting called out for pretentiousness (and already has), it seems that Apple is at least putting its construction plans where its mouth is, what with its sweeping, public outdoor plaza, indoor trees and destination location. Also, it's kinda shaped like a laptop, which must count for something.

If our third spaces must be retail shops, at least this one should look nice!