The new Verizon destination store at 840 N. Michigan Ave., which opened Saturday, boasts a bevy of bells and whistles to entice weary Mag Mile shoppers who need a place to warm up or pass the time, if not buy a new phone.
Here are five notable features of the two-floor, 10,000-square-foot store, Verizon’s largest so far in its effort to create an interactive “playroom for technology,” as Jay Jaffin, Verizon’s vice president of marketing communications, put it.
*Shoppers can create custom smartphone cases using images from their own social media pages or take a fresh one in an adjacent photo booth with a green screen. A retro pneumatic tube sucks the case up to the second floor for production, where it is ready in about 45 minutes.
*At a testing area for fitness bands and smartwatches, shoppers can pedal on a stationary bike or walk or run on a self-propelled treadmill adorned with “experience monitors” that immerse them in a city or neighborhood of their choice using Google Street View. The same area has a station to measure your vertical jump and a soccer net in which to kick the Adidas “smart” soccer ball.
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*An “interactive focal wall” invites customers to play on a huge motion-sensor LED screen powered through Xbox Kinect, where they can participate in a series of virtual activities, including throwing a football, playing guitar and hang gliding.
*At a zone called “Have Fun,” one of six “lifestyle zones” in the store, shoppers can practice flying a small Parrot drone.
*A pizza truck dubbed Magnificent Deep Dish, which showcases point-of-sale systems for small businesses, is among several design details meant as a nod to Chicago. Signage on the stairs and elevator are made to resemble CTA platforms.
The Verizon store has plenty of practical areas, too. Various touchscreens pull up device specs or pricing plans to help customers compare options side-by-side. An education area holds at least two classes daily on topics such as how to use an Android phone or iOS 8.
And, a relief for many holiday shoppers, dying phones can get juiced at the “charging concierge,” where they are stowed away to charge in a cabinet while their owners are given a claim ticket like at a coat check.