The third Apple retail store is scheduled to open Friday Aug. 3, along with the rest of The Shops at Willow Bend shopping center in Plano, TX. Plano, one of the fastest growing suburban cities in Texas, is a bit north of Dallas.
The mall has almost 175 shops and restaurants. Located at the intersection of West Park Boulevard and the Dallas North Tollway in Plano. The Shops at Willow Bend feature Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor, Foley’s and Dillard’s among other stores. Saks 5th Avenue will open in 2004.
According to promotional info on the mall, it offers “lush landscaping, soft lighting, rich wood, masonry, etched glass,” as well as cascading fountains, spacious parking garages, and open walkways. The Apple store is located on the lower level between Neiman Marcus and Dillard’s, next to the CC’s Coffee House Court.
Following is the mall description of the Apple retail store: “Apple vows to teach shoppers at its first Texas location about the digital lifestyle with an extensive selection of Macs, 300 software titles and peripherals like MP3 players, digital camcorders, digital cameras and scanners. All of the Macs are connected to the Internet and several let users make movies, burn custom music CDs and publish their digital photos on a personal website.” Ginger Green is the store manager. At the Friday grand opening, there’ll be free T-shirts for the first 1,000 customers. And there’ll be equipment and software demonstrations.
After Plano, 22 more Apple retail stores more will open across the United States before the end of the year with more planned for 2002. (Thanks to MacCentral reader Scott Thompson for providing us some of the info in this article.)