APPLE, CIRCUIT CITY HEAD TO CAROUSEL.(Business)(Column)

     Two big names in retail electronics and computers are coming to Carousel Center mall in the fall: Circuit City and an Apple store from Apple Computer . 
      Circuit City is getting a 34,000-square-foot store where DSW Shoe Warehouse was located, on the mall's first level across from J.C. Penney . DSW is hoofing it this weekend to new digs, on the mall's lower level, taking 24,000 square feet that once belonged to Mikasa and Guitar Outlet . 
     Apple is building its latest prototype store on the mall's second level, next to the coming J.B. Robinson Jewelers near the food court. 
     Circuit City is aiming to be open for the holiday shopping season, probably mid-November. Apple is aiming to get in around the end of September. 
     Both retailers are revamping stores and product lineups. 
     The arrival of Circuit City puts the No. 2 electronics retailer in the United States almost directly below the No. 1 player, Best Buy , which is on the mall's second level. 
     Like Best Buy, Circuit City stores sell televisions, DVD players, camcorders, computers - no Apple computers - computer supplies and entertainment software, including video games and DVDs. Unlike in Best Buy stores, you won't find major appliances. Circuit City phased them out in 2001. 
       Circuit City is replacing or adding up to 70 superstores in its current fiscal year, but there are more replacements than there are new stores. Carousel gets a new one, on the larger end of Circuit's prototypes and one of the few that are mall-based. 
     One more CC note: Carousel sort of did have one back in the day. Remember the tiny Impulse store? The small, mall-based offshoot of Circuit City was part of the Carousel's lineup in the early 1990s. It was later renamed Circuit City Express and, even later than that, vanished in 1997. 
      Those who do their retailing in New Hartford have been able to partake of Circuit City, at Sangertown Square. Sangertown, like Carousel, is owned by Syracuse's The Pyramid Cos. 
Apple's newest prototype stores are smaller than their first models, and edgier. The Carousel store will be only the second of the newest version; the first is in Apple's home port of Cupertino, Calif.
       As you can guess, Apple stores push Apple products, from home computers and peripherals to Apple's smoking-hot iPod digital music player, plus other products that support Apple's "digital lifestyle" quest, cameras and digital videocams that synch with Apple's computers. 
     You won't miss the Apple's one-piece metallic storefront sporting just the Apple logo. The black barricade with the Apple logo will also catch a few eyes. It should be going up soon so construction can begin.