Apple Given Free Rent Just to Open Up Stores

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How sad is this? Cities and towns around the country offering years of free rent to Apple, just to get an Apple Store in their town?

Apple Stores are increasingly seen as a sign of affluence, a sign that a neighborhood "has arrived." It turns out that some cities are more anxious to arrive than others, offering Apple sweetheart deals to open new stores — deals that often include Apple getting to move in rent-free.
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I wish I could get free rent just to live in a city like this. It's so weird how such a rich company (worth over half a trillion dollars) gets more benefits and handouts than most people.
 
Clockworks said:
I wish I could get free rent just to live in a city like this. It's so weird how such a rich company (worth over half a trillion dollars) gets more benefits and handouts than most people.
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Local taxes = Revenue for the town.

If bringing an Apple Store in your mall gains more customers to your mall, it's worth the free rent.
 
wiseoracle said:
Local taxes = Revenue for the town.

If bringing an Apple Store in your mall gains more customers to your mall, it's worth the free rent.
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Ding.

More traffic = more opened stores which then = worth the free rent.
 
Based on my two years of property accounting/management experience, property owners almost always offer a tenant free rent for at least a few months if not years when signing a new lease or renewal. A town, though? Interesting...
 
Apple stores are the highest money spent per square foot of any retail store, they are a massive boost to the area that they exist in.
 
diehard said:
Apple stores are the highest money spent per square foot of any retail store, they are a massive boost to the area that they exist in.
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Yeah, them and Wal-Mart. The town should consider a Wal-Mart if they don't have one yet. I'm sure small business owners would revolt if the town offered free rent to a jack-of-all-trade store like Wal-Mart that'll put them all out of business.

Wal-Mart was rejected in my town for this reason.
 
Azhar said:
Yeah, them and Wal-Mart. The town should consider a Wal-Mart if they don't have one yet. I'm sure small business owners would revolt if the town offered free rent to a jack-of-all-trade store like Wal-Mart that'll put them all out of business.

Wal-Mart was rejected in my town for this reason.
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Sometime what's "best" for everyone on average, isn't always a good thing.

Kind of like eminent domain...
 
Sounds like an idea that would have been started in Portland, OR. Keep Portland Weird (just keep Vancouver normal).
 
There's two reasons for doing this, The first is to keep Tenants in locations to keep the entire area from looking like a ghost town. (Very common during the recession, or old malls) and nowadays, it's used to attract tenants due to the glut of space that's available.

Where I live from 2005 to late 2009 shopping centers sprung up all over the place and the later ones ended up being 90% empty for years. The ones that did happen to fill up right before the bubble burst offered a lot of the major tenants free rent to stay open, and now that things are looking better they have to pay (and some stores are finally closing) You still see several places that promote free rent for six months or even years, depending on how much space needed for the store, and it's just because they think a major pull will get other people to open up shop there.
 
Good ol Steve, continue your Apple hatin'. 1 town gave them free rent so far, and some other may follow now because of that. Well just you wait till they do this for MS stores! Ok, long wait...
 
Apple gets free rent. Hollywood gives Apple free product placement. Apple gets good deals with exposure in schools.

The only losers are the actual Apple customers who pay twice as much to get less.
 
Like it or not, Apple stores bring in a lot of foot traffic. Even if folks aren't buying the latest iPad or MacBook, they're browsing there. Inevitably, they'll get lunch or dinner in the neighborhood, too. The stores generate a little economic mecca that helps drive the local economy. If giving Apple free rent gets them to drop one of these "beacons" in your town, wouldn't you give them a sweetheart deal, too?
 
Captain Kirk said:
Like it or not, Apple stores bring in a lot of foot traffic. Even if folks aren't buying the latest iPad or MacBook, they're browsing there. Inevitably, they'll get lunch or dinner in the neighborhood, too. The stores generate a little economic mecca that helps drive the local economy. If giving Apple free rent gets them to drop one of these "beacons" in your town, wouldn't you give them a sweetheart deal, too?
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Totally agreed! Even people from other cities will go too
 
Stone Cold said:
Apple gets free rent. Hollywood gives Apple free product placement. Apple gets good deals with exposure in schools.

The only losers are the actual Apple customers who pay twice as much to get less.
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iPhone and iPads are 2x as expensive as their competitors? News to me.
 
Apple has a really nice looking store and it draws customers. You'd be stupid to not try and entice them to your properties. Oh wait maybe there should be more TJ Max and Dollar Tree or Claires(high revenue).

awsiemieniec: you need to check out vancouvria on the youtubes
 
obs said:
iPhone and iPads are 2x as expensive as their competitors? News to me.
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Close. Maybe not twice on iPads. Got my Galaxy S2 for free when iPhones that were almost as powerful as the S2 were going for over $199.99 subsidized. Since basically no one buys retail, I would make the argument that $0 vs. $200 is more than 2x. Tablet side, why don't we stick with Samsung? Samsung offers tablets almost as powerful as the iPad 2 for just over half the price... the best part? 90% of the users wouldn't know the difference in power. You're paying for the marketed prestige of using an Apple product.

It's quite obvious that you get much more from competitors for the same price. I know it takes a little bit to take the blinders off, but I promise you can.
 
If I'm able to bring in massive amounts of tax revenue and visitors just by being somewhere, I'm sure most of the cities in the world would give me free rent too. ;)
 
I would argue that the stores themselves don't generate that much tax revenue. Every time I've been in an Apple store it's full of people just looking around. On the rare occasion that I've actually purchased something, I've never had to wait in line to pay. However, the amount of foot traffic is remarkable, and that has to be good for surrounding businesses.
 
potency said:
I would argue that the stores themselves don't generate that much tax revenue. Every time I've been in an Apple store it's full of people just looking around. On the rare occasion that I've actually purchased something, I've never had to wait in line to pay. However, the amount of foot traffic is remarkable, and that has to be good for surrounding businesses.
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Well, at least some of people must have bought something because their retail revenue per sq foot is rather astounding: http://www.asymco.com/2012/04/18/apple-stores-have-seventeen-times-better-performance-than-the-average-retailer/
 
Yea, technically they don't have a line, because any associate can handle it with their iDevice. Good in that it leads to good customer service, and everything just flows. Bad in that it's discouraging to people who come in knowing exactly what they want. The self checkout they added helped a little for the accessories, but obviously that does not work on hardware.
 
haste. said:
Close. Maybe not twice on iPads. Got my Galaxy S2 for free when iPhones that were almost as powerful as the S2 were going for over $199.99 subsidized. Since basically no one buys retail, I would make the argument that $0 vs. $200 is more than 2x. Tablet side, why don't we stick with Samsung? Samsung offers tablets almost as powerful as the iPad 2 for just over half the price... the best part? 90% of the users wouldn't know the difference in power. You're paying for the marketed prestige of using an Apple product.

It's quite obvious that you get much more from competitors for the same price. I know it takes a little bit to take the blinders off, but I promise you can.
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Believe me, samsung WISHES they could charge 199 for their phones, but guess what? They can't. If you can't compete on a product level, compete on a price level. That's what it boils down to, plain and simple.
 
Someone had the brilliant idea of putting an Apple store in my University's campus centre, I've almost never seen people in there, not even people just having a look. Every time I walk past it's just the employees rearranging the shelves or sitting lazily behind the counter no doing anything.

Actually even the Apple stores I've seen in large shopping centres don't attract a hell of a lot of traffic when compared to the random clothes shops.

Maybe Apple just isn't as popular round these parts, though I do see a lot of kids using Apple products (with the obligatory "it probably wouldn't do X if you just bought a real computer/phone" comments), but I dunno how many actually purchase them from Apple stores, the stores seem pretty dead to me.
 
Who bothers with retail stores anymore, especially with the stupid prices they charge? I don't remember the last time I went to store for anything I wasn't desperate for, I suppose people attracted to this kind of shop aren't exactly 'savvy'.

Theres a huge array of shops within 1 mile, but absolutely 0 point going to any of them but for food or printer ink if I'm desperate.
 
On the other end of the spectrum, Walmart wanted to build a supercenter in the small town where I grew up. City council basically told them to fuck off. every small business owner in town would have lynched the council. Walmart went in a non-zoned vacant lot 10 miles away, and we still have a downtown, as much as any small town does these days.
 
haste. said:
Close. Maybe not twice on iPads. Got my Galaxy S2 for free when iPhones that were almost as powerful as the S2 were going for over $199.99 subsidized. Since basically no one buys retail, I would make the argument that $0 vs. $200 is more than 2x.
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$0 and $200 are not the price of the phones, which is why your argument is invalid. The service plans subsidize the phones. The Galaxy S2 and iPhone 4 both cost $600, but the Galaxy S2 has much better specs. Also, you can get a reasonably good Android phone for as little as $200.
 
motomonkey said:
On the other end of the spectrum, Walmart wanted to build a supercenter in the small town where I grew up. City council basically told them to fuck off. every small business owner in town would have lynched the council. Walmart went in a non-zoned vacant lot 10 miles away, and we still have a downtown, as much as any small town does these days.
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So 2 stores, 15 dollar stores and 120 boarded up ones? :D
 
Stone Cold said:
$0 and $200 are not the price of the phones, which is why your argument is invalid. The service plans subsidize the phones. The Galaxy S2 and iPhone 4 both cost $600, but the Galaxy S2 has much better specs. Also, you can get a reasonably good Android phone for as little as $200.
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A little confused cause you quoted me comparing subsidized prices. But I'm glad you at least read my post.
 
Ryan711 said:
Believe me, samsung WISHES they could charge 199 for their phones, but guess what? They can't. If you can't compete on a product level, compete on a price level. That's what it boils down to, plain and simple.
Click to expand...

If Samsung had marketed as well as Apple had under Jobs leadership they could. Jobs, as they say, could sell ice to an eskimo... he did a wonderful job of creating an army of people that will pay extravagant prices for inferior products.
 
Ryan711 said:
Believe me, samsung WISHES they could charge 199 for their phones, but guess what? They can't. If you can't compete on a product level, compete on a price level. That's what it boils down to, plain and simple.
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Samsung is selling their phones for that much. The carriers are the ones that heavily subsidize non Apple phones, rather than pay the kick back to Apple for the privilege of letting Apple's phone onto their system. ( ATT used to pay Apple $18 per month, per iphone, on their system. Don't know what it is now)
It's the carriers really, and I can see why they do it the way they do.

Free rent, free land, discount utilities, tax breaks, etc., are all common practices actually. That Apple also benefits from those practices is neither surprising or even particularly noteworthy.
 
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