Bookstores

Barnes & Noble will close their longtime store in Framingham, MA in January, but expect to open a new 18,000-square-foot location nearby in Natick, MA in the spring. Similarly, in Tampa, FL, they will vacate a longtime space of almost 20,000 square feet and open a new 10,000-square-foot location in Westshore in February.

The WSJ touts Barnes & Noble’s previously-announced store expansion plans as part of a bigger trend, as “several other big-box retailers are expanding again after years of shutting stores, a sign of the industry’s resilience emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic.” The bookseller has said it has “over 30 stores in development for 2023.” BN CEO James Daunt says, “We’ve now got both the profitability and the confidence to start opening up stores again.” The story concedes that, “Many of the new bookstores are smaller in size and opening in markets where larger locations had closed.” Often much smaller, as the […]

Barnes & Noble will swap locations again, this time in Holmdel, NJ. The current location closes on November 29 after 21 years as the lease expires, and the smaller replacement store in the Commons at Holmdel Shopping Center opens on November 30. The new location is 18,000 square feet and is “across the parking lot.” Separately, the bookseller plans to open a large, 28,000-square-foot store at The Spectrum at Reston Town Center in Reston, VA next spring. The company closed a store in the same mall in 2013. CEO James Daunt hails it as “the largest new bookstore to be […]

A new bookstore called Annabelle’s Book Club LA will open in LA’s Studio City, on November 25. The store will have a YA focus and be “a highly curated collection of books and gifts with a modern point of view.” It is founded by 16-year-old Annabelle Chang, and located in Studio City.

Zibby Owens will open a bookstore called Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica, CA in 2023. The store will be 823-square-feet and focus on “showcasing highly curated titles in an innovative way, spotlighting authors, guiding readers, and fostering community.” Last year, Owens also launched imprint Zibby Books.

Barnes & Noble will open a new NYC location at 3rd Avenue and E. 87th Street in spring 2023. Its previous location in the neighborhood, on E. 86th Street, closed in the summer of 2020. CEO James Daunt said, “It is very good news to bring our bookstore back to the Upper East Side. It was very sad to close in the depths of the pandemic and especially pleasing now to reopen with one that is so dramatically more attractive. We take over a beautiful building with an old-style character with which it is a pleasure to work in creating […]