Brooks splashes out in US on Apple store
Aidan Brooks and below, the store the developer bought in Boston
LIMERICK developer Aidan Brooks has made another significant purchase in the US with the Boston Globe reporting that he has bought the Apple Store in that city’s exclusive Back Bay area for $30 million.
Brooks, who is now based mainly in London and who helped develop much of Henry Street in Limerick city, appears to be one of the few Irish developers able to weather the world recession.
Apple is said to have chosen Boston as the location for its largest US store because of the city’s financial, healthcare and academic strengths.
Apple has 15 years remaining on the lease of the 26,000 square foot building, which was one of the reasons why the sale attracted huge interest in the States.
Boston is the home to some of the world’s best hospitals and financial institutions and was the least affected US city by the US recession. It is also the home to 350,000 students, making it particularly attractive to Apple.
Earlier this year Brooks purchased an old car park in Boston for $50 million and demolished it to make way for a new building which will become the home to French luxury retailer Chanel.
Brooks, who started out installing television aerials with his father in Limerick city, also owns all the Chanel and Emporio Armani stores in San Francisco, and the city‘s Saks Fifth Avenue, which is endorsed by Victoria Beckham.
Brooks Properties is also the registered owner of the landmark Banana Republic store in Greenwich village, New York and of a Chase Bank in East Hampton, New York.
Boston has over 100 universities and colleges including Harvard, which has 20,000 students alone and assets of over $26 billion.
The complex transaction saw Apple demolish an old existing building which was owned by a local Boston family.
The deal then saw Apple constructing a new building to their trademark design, at a cost of $35M to Apple. The company then signed a 20 year lease on the property from the local family.
The family have in turn sold the building to Brooks via his Tribeca Holdings, based in Berkeley Square Mayfair in London.
Apple’s sales from the store are reported to be $150million per year. Apple is the world’s largest company with a market value of over $600 billion.
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