Apple's All-New Birmingham Store Opens September 24, Bullring Location to Close

Tuesday September 20, 2016 6:09 AM PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has announced its all-new store in Birmingham, England, located at 128 New Street, opens on Saturday, September 24 at 9:00 a.m. local time. Apple's nearby Bullring Shopping Centre store will permanently close on Friday, just one week after customers lined up for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

apple-birmingham
Apple Birmingham under renovations via MacRumors reader Barry Rimmer

Apple has taken over a six-story building recently vacated by British bookstore Waterstones, and originally built in 1879 for Midland Bank.

Major planning documents for the inside of the 20,000-square-foot former banking hall were submitted to the Birmingham City Council last year, and renovations have been in progress for the past several months. Apple's logo and the grand opening date were added to a construction barrier outside of the building last week.

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Apple Store at nearby Bullring Shopping Centre

Apple Bullring opened in April 2005, and like many of its earlier locations, it is now too small and narrow to accommodate for increased foot traffic. Apple is in the process of relocating several of its retail stores to larger spaces, based on the company's next-generation retail design language inspired by Jony Ive.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Tag: United Kingdom
60 comments


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OllyW
36 months ago
Ground floor...





Rating: 6 Votes
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OllyW
36 months ago

Apple Bullring opened in April 2005, and like many of its earlier locations, it is now too small and narrow to accommodate for increased foot traffic.

It's been too small since the day it opened, it's always rammed in there every time I go in.
Rating: 5 Votes
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OllyW
36 months ago
Opening in 5 minutes.

Rating: 3 Votes
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Joe Rossignol
36 months ago

Intrigued by your comment I went to the Apple website and found this.

http://www.apple.com/retail/
[doublepost=1474380953][/doublepost]
Apple has not retired the word --

http://www.apple.com/retail/

Yeah. The change is simply "Apple Store, Bullring" to "Apple Bullring," for example, and I follow this naming convention in all of my store-related articles. But when generically referring to an Apple retail location, I still call them stores. It's what they are.
Rating: 3 Votes
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OllyW
36 months ago
Do they still hand out T-shirts at new stores or has that been phased out now they are so popular?
Rating: 2 Votes
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dunlop73
36 months ago
According to a staff member I talked to recently, the new store will be 10 times larger than the current one. The New Street store is a beautiful building and, as a Brummie, I am delighted that Apple are going to look after it. I was worried its might be another H&M or Primark...
Rating: 2 Votes
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Ap0ks
36 months ago

That building looks to only have two floors, not six. Anyone got a better picture?

The large windows in old banks can be deceptive, here's the building from the other end ('https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4785886,-1.8983317,3a,75y,335.54h,114.24t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sMqr024FXCoVzFcd8tiqsCQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656').
Rating: 2 Votes
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OllyW
36 months ago

The large windows in old banks can be deceptive, here's the building from the other end ('https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4785886,-1.8983317,3a,75y,335.54h,114.24t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sMqr024FXCoVzFcd8tiqsCQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656').

There's quite a steep drop in the road that runs alongside from the front of the store to back and of course there's going to be an underground floor where the vaults were once located.

This is what it looked like inside when it was Waterstones.



Rating: 2 Votes
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tomacwhite
36 months ago
Right next to work, can't wait to see it :)
Rating: 2 Votes
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itchster
36 months ago

It doesn't look vastly bigger than the Bullring store (width-wise), but it is a much better looking building than a plain rectangle in a shopping centre :)


The photo is a little bit deceptive from the front a few points to be mindful about


* The front door is huge, its a big double height and probably double length door compared to the one at the Bullring
* Its on a slope so there is actually a second entrance on the bottom floor under the floor the main entrance is on which assuming Apple use it (and they should!) is right over the road from New Street Station and the Metro tram stop.
* The main staircase is not at the back of the store it actually carries on behind that about roughly half again that you can see in the photos and there is a floor under that (with that second entrance)
* There are multiple floors above the main floor and from what I remember its basically a maze with a spiral staircase somewhere as well
Rating: 1 Votes
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