Brooklyn's Second Apple Store Reportedly Slated for Fort Greene

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — Looks like Fort Greene could soon become the second Brooklyn neighborhood, after Williamsburg, to host a full-blown Apple Store. Real-estate news site The Real Deal reported Wednesday, citing inside sources, that Apple has inked a deal to lease 12,000 square feet of space within the base of the glassy new "BAM South" development at 300 Ashland Pl. near Lafayette Avenue, on the border of Fort Greene and Downtown Brooklyn.

Rumors flew as far back as 2013 that Apple might be eying BAM South as a future host vessel, but we hadn't heard much on the matter in recent months.

Reached by phone Wednesday evening, an Apple spokeswoman would not confirm — nor deny — The Real Deal's exclusive report to Patch. "We haven't made any announcement regarding a store at that location, so I don't have anything to add to your story," the spokeswoman said.

If the report is true, Apple's new outpost at 300 Ashland would be the company's 11th store in New York City.

The first few floors of the 32-story BAM South tower, whose name is a reference to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) next door, will also house a movie theater (with films selected by BAM), a public library branch, a dance studio and a huge, 15,000-square-foot outdoor plaza, according to the architecture firm that designed the building, TEN Arquitectos.

Above that will be nearly 400 luxury apartments, 20 percent of which are reserved for low-income applications.

Renderings of the development, via TEN Arquitectos, are included below. (Apple's new store would apparently be located on one of the first three stories.)

TEN Arquitectos described the thinking behind the building's design on its website:

"With several public entrances, the porous building aims to facilitate an easy flow of people into and out of the cultural and retail spaces. ... The tower and the building base are unified by a continuous folding skin of perforated metal, which will pick up the colors of the surrounding streets, buildings and sky, and thereby putting the focus where it should be — on the activated streetscape and life of the city."

Renderings courtesy of TEN Arquitectos