BrisbaneAustralia
Latest
Australian contractor reveals Apple Store complexities
In many ways, the design of Apple Stores reflects greatly on the attention to detail and design savvy of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. He was a stickler for detail, often obsessing over the placement of individual pixels on a screen or the exact shade of a particular case color. ifoAppleStore has a story today complete with photos from an Australian contracting firm showing the amount of work required to get an existing building prepared for an Apple Store. The MacArthur Chambers store was to open in Brisbane, Australia, in a historic building built in 1849. SJ Higgins Group was the construction company charged with "stripping the existing tenancy fit out back to the original heritage fabric in preparation for the new worldwide retailer to fit out." Over US$2.5 million was spent on renovation work before Apple withdrew from the project. Work included removing escalators and elevators, gutting four levels with about 21,000 square feet of space, closing up old openings and creating new ones. One image from the SJ Higgins Group website shows a concrete wall -- over 31 inches thick -- having a huge opening installed with the aid of heavy machinery. Plans for the Brisbane store were first seen in April 2011, but work progress was slow and actually stopped when a contractor faced financial issues. Apple dropped the project in November of 2012.
