After months of anticipation, speculation and construction, Apple Inc. will unveil its new retail store location in Berkeley on Saturday — a move which some hope will contribute to the atmosphere and revitalization of the area.
The Apple store — located at 1823 Fourth St. — will be open to the public at a Grand Opening ceremony beginning at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
Prior to the construction of the Fourth Street store, the Apple retail store located closest to Berkeley was in Emeryville, just under three miles from the new store’s location.
The store will occupy a space previously held by furniture retailer Slater Marinoff & Company.
According to Dave Fogarty, Berkeley’s economic development project coordinator, the store’s opening will contribute to the revitalization of the commercial area surrounding it.
“There’s no question that the store will attract a lot of people and help to revitalize Fourth Street,” Fogarty said. “I think it will bump up Fourth Street in terms of Berkeley business districts.”
The store’s opening will contribute to the city by generating revenues from sales tax as well as bringing consumers to the area, he said. Additionally, the store will have an impact in terms of employment despite its small size, Fogarty added.
“We’re certainly concerned about employment in the midst of a depression, but it is one store, and I can’t imagine they’ll employ more than 50 people or so,” Fogarty said. “Even so, that number is not negligible.”
Local merchants expressed a mixture of excitement and trepidation at the Apple store opening in the area.
According to Wai Lee, owner of Modern Accessories for Computers, which is located on Shattuck Avenue near University Avenue, it will take time to determine what the impacts of the Apple store will be.
“It’s hard to say, and we’ll see how it plays out,” Lee said. “We have a very happy customer base, and they are really loyal to us.”
Lee said that, ideally, he hopes to establish a cooperative relationship with the store. According to Lee, local Apple retail stores already refer customers to his store.
“There isn’t a 100 percent overlap between the things we do,” Lee said. “We welcome them to the community, wish them well and if they need any help from us, they’re always free to refer people our way.”
George Kiskaddon and his wife Sally own Builders Booksource, which is located directly adjacent to the new Apple store. George Kiskaddon said he had “mixed feelings” about the store opening in the area.
“It’s going to change our block a lot, but at this point I need to be optimistic because business has been depressed for over the last year,” George Kiskaddon said. “We’re optimistic that it’ll bring a whole new group of people … it could be great. We’ll see what happens.”
While the news that the store is opening is now publicly available, initially the store had been tight-lipped about releasing information regarding the store’s coming to Berkeley.
According to Kiskaddon, merchants in the area surrounding the new store initially heard about the stores’s construction “through the grapevine.”
“We’ve been a little flabbergasted at how they only just recently sent an email announcing the store was going to open, despite the fact that it was something we’d been hearing through the grapevine,” he said. “They were very secretive about it.”
Aaida Samad is an assistant news editor.
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