Apple to Open Larger Store in Santa Monica, Landlord Says

Apple Inc. (AAPL), the world’s largest company by market value, plans to replace its store on Santa Monica, California’s Third Street Promenade retail district with a bigger location, according to landlord Jordache Enterprises.

Nakash Holdings, the real estate investment unit of the New York-based company that gained fame with its designer jeans in the 1970s, today completed the purchase of the store’s land and building, which is under construction, said Jonathan Bennett, director of real estate for Jordache. It bought the property from Los Angeles-based Blatteis & Schnur Inc. and Bethesda, Maryland-based ASB Capital Management LLC.

“The deal was contingent on Apple being the tenant,” Bennett said in a telephone interview today. “The Promenade is just a fantastic location and we love Apple.”

The store will have about 17,500 square feet (1,625 square meters) of space on three floors and is scheduled to open by the end of the year, Bennett said. A former Borders Group Inc. bookstore was torn down to make room for the new building. An existing, 6,000-square-foot Apple location on Third Street Promenade will close when the new outlet opens, Bennett said.

Amy Bessette, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, declined to comment. Daniel Blatteis, co-chairman of Blatteis & Schnur, and David Quigley, Palo Alto, California- based managing director and chief investment officer at ASB Capital’s real estate investment division, didn’t immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.

Closely held Jordache, which owns stakes in such properties as Manhattan’s Fred F. French Building on Fifth Avenue at 45th Street, has been buying “long-term, generational” properties with established tenants, Bennett said. The company already owned real estate on Third Street Promenade, he said.

Bennett wouldn’t disclose the price Jordache paid for the Apple store property.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nadja Brandt in Los Angeles at nbrandt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net