Apple To Build 'Upper Echelon' Store, Workshop Space In Downtown's Historic Tower Theater
STUDIO CITY (CBSLA) — One of the world's largest technology companies that was just valued at a trillion dollars says it plans to re-purpose a historic theater in the heart of Downtown L.A. to build one its stores, but one for the Hollywood crowd.
Apple told the LA Times it is planning to convert the long-shuttered Tower Theater on 8th Street and Broadway into a store that "very much differs from the other Apple stores you see in L.A.," the company's director of retail said. The store will be "in the upper echelon of what Apple does," BJ Siegel told the paper.
According to the Times, the company will soon file plans with the city to create a retail space, as well as a place for Apple-centric programs and classes for what the paper speculates is a hint at the company's future ventures as a content creator.
The theater is among several along L.A.'s historic thoroughfare, which has been highlighted in recent years during "Bringing Back Broadway," the crown jewel of L.A. City Councilman Jose Huizar's Downtown revitalization effort.
The campaign tweeted Apple's move is proof Huizar's project is "paying off."
Still, some longtime observers of the development on Broadway expressed less-than-enthusiastic views about the project.
The Los Angeles Historic Theater Foundation, a nonprofit whose goal it is to promote the restoration of the Downtown movie houses for their original purposes, while deciding not to oppose the plan said it will monitor the construction to make sure the building is preserved.
Esotouric, a company that gives tours and talks on historic L.A. areas and landmarks, called the plans "underwhelming."
Apple on Thursday became the first publicly traded company to be valued at $1 trillion.
