Global triple play: New Apple Store openings Saturday in US, UK and Spain

A pair of teaser images posted on Madrid’s Parquesur mall’s Facebook page.

That Apple’s retail chief Ron Johnson is on its way out, taking over CEO post at JC Penney early 2012, hasn’t affected the slightest bit the company’s aggressive retail expansion. Last week, the gadget maker opened five new stores: Two in the U.S. (one in Anchorage, Alaska and the other in Murray, Utah), a store in Research In Motion’s Waterloo, Ontario homeland, as well as shops in Australia’s Cheltenham and Italy’s Florence. But Apple ain’t resting on their laurels: They’ve scheduled three international grand openings for this weekend.

ifoAppleStore explains this entails a Bay Area shop, the first Apple Store opening in the area in nearly three years. The new 4th Street store at Berkeley, North California will be open for business beginning 10am this Saturday. At the same time, another store will greet visitors in the United Kingdom, at the Festival Place shopping mall in Basingstoke southwest of London.

That’s just tip of the iceberg, though. Apple last month confirmed in an earnings call twenty new stores before the end of September, including a new flagship store in Hong Kong meant to at least partially satisfy the insatiable appetite of the Chinese. In all, Apple plans on opening up to 25 new stores in China by the year’s end. These new stores will serve to meet Apple’s growth while supporting their other grandiose undertakings.

Take, for example, the monumental shopping experience Apple has in store for New York’s Grand Central Terminal, depicted below. The company is also replacing the iconic glass cube at New York’s Fifth Avenue – which is also one of the city’s top photo attractions – with a simpler version sporting just fifteen glass panes, three per side, down from ninety. The new, seamless glass cube will cost six million dollars. Go past the break for more information and images about Apple’s third store opening in Spain.

CLICK FOR LARGER The Metropolitan Transportation Authority this morning released high-quality renderings depicting Apple’s monumental 23,000-suqare-foot retail space integrated right inside New York’s landmarked Grand Central Terminal. It will sport a long balcony and elevator lobby, among other treats. Apple will be paying for the elevator and a cool $1.1 million to rent space from Charlie Palmer’s Metrazur restaurant.

Per poorly done Google translation of the original article by Applesencia.com, Apple is also opening a new retail spot at the Parquesur mall in Madrid, Spain. According to Apple’s retail web site, grand opening is slated for Saturday August 20, 2011 at 10am. The Parquesur store is Apple’s third store in the country, the remaining two being the La Maquinista shop in Barcelona and another one in Madrid’s Xanadú mall. Apple is also rumored to open a new store in Spain’s Barcelona, ​​Valencia or Malaga.

As always, a new Apple store opening is a social phenomenon unlike and other shopping experience, drawing significant crowds that form long lines. If you live in one of the areas scheduled for the Apple Store treatment this weekend, do send us your grand opening images and notes from grand opening.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/24490893 w=400&h=225]

Union Station Neighborhood Fly Through from Union Station Neighborhood on Vimeo.

Check out the Apple logo during a fly-over depicting Denver’s Union Station, currently undergoing a massive rejuvenation effort to make it a center of transportation, commerce and public gatherings. The logo indicates a possible Apple store in this enormous rail station.