Apple opened its first downtown Detroit store at 5 p.m. on Friday, September 19, with Tim Cook in attendance. He greeted the line, then unlocked the doors. It was the iPhone 17 launch day, which is the kind of timing Apple coordinates globally, and Detroit was on the list.
For two decades it wasn't. The store is at 1430 Woodward Avenue, next to the Shinola Hotel, in the D.J. Healy Co. Building, a 1910 structure that runs across three storefronts.
Bedrock owns the property. Dan Gilbert, on X, claimed it would be one of the highest-performing Apple stores in the country, which is either a wager or a guess. Bedrock spent years pulling Apple downtown.
The location is roughly 5,000 square feet, runs on 100 percent renewable energy, and features a small handful of design choices Apple says are unique to it. The ceiling has timber columns, a first for any Apple store, and the Apple Watch display sits at the front rather than the back. Apple's marketing for the opening leaned Detroit.
A "Hello, 313" wallpaper, a custom chrome Apple logo with a stylized "D" in the center, curated app picks tied to local makers. Drey Pang, who flew in for the opening, said he visits Apple stores around the country as a hobby, which mostly means architecture and merchandising. JT Tinsley, a Wayne State student living in Midtown, said opening downtown made sense to him because more people are coming downtown now.
Cook, after the ribbon cut, toured the Apple Manufacturing Academy a few blocks away, a workforce program Apple launched with Michigan State University earlier in the summer. The store replaces the closed Apple location at Partridge Creek mall in Clinton Township. Apple still has stores in Troy, Novi, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, and Lansing.
Detroit was the gap. It's now closed. Apple Detroit, 1430 Woodward Avenue, Detroit.
