By AppleInsider Staff

Published: 10:00 AM EST

If Apple's Web site can be of any indication, the company's long-rumored flagship Midtown Manhattan retail store will be open for the 2005 holiday shopping season.

Earlier this weekend the Mac maker posted to its job listing Web site a new retail location labeled "New York - Midtown." Oddly enough, the store is incorrectly listed as an upcoming location in Texas; so far no related job postings have been filed.

The location listing -- though seemingly premature -- most definitely references the 25,000-square-foot flagship retail store planned for the lower-level concourse of the General Motors Building at 767 Fifth Avenue, between 58th and 59th Street.

Sources previously told AppleInsider the Midtown location would "rival anything seen so far" from Apple Retail, accompanying a structure similar to the glass Pyramid found in the Louvre's cour Napoléon, but in cube form.

A New York Times article later described the structure as a "glass cube 32 by 32 by 32 feet" that will be "set like a jumbo gemstone into the middle of the plaza of the General Motors Building."

"From the outside, the cube will appear empty. But inside will be a circular glass stairway and a cylindrical elevator leading to a 25,000-square-foot underground space," said The Times.

Apple will reportedly reserve a few thousand square-feet for storage and office space, reducing the usable retail space to about 21,000-square feet -- almost the equivalent to its SoHo flagship retail store, located in southern Manhattan.



With the construction of the Midtown store, Manhattan will become the first city to host two Apple flagship locations -- about an hour's stroll from each other on a sunny day.

The location listing on Apple's Jobs Web site is the first time the company has publicly acknowledged plans for a Midtown retail store.