Apple to open in Kahala Mall on Feb. 10

The store is the company's second in the islands

Apple Inc. is planning to open its new store at Kahala Mall on Feb. 10.

A notice on www.apple.com announced a week of grand opening events starting that day. Events include a T-shirt giveaway for the first 1,000 people to visit the store.

The store, which is expected to occupy about 5,000 square feet in what was formerly the ground-floor Gap space at Kahala Mall, will be Apple's second retail store in Hawaii.

Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., opened its first store at the mall level of Ala Moana Center in May 2003.

The computer company has been hiring for the Kahala store since July.

Other events scheduled for grand opening week include sweepstakes for prizes that include a MacBook, an iPod Nano, an iPod Hi-Fi, iWork software and a one-year membership to ProCare as well as a one-year membership to .Mac.