Toco Hills shopping center has reportedly just landed a surprising new tenant: Barnes & Noble. The private equity-owned bookstore chain is slated to open in place of Westside Market, the locally-owned business that closed at Toco Hills this past December after about seven years in business.
Decaturish, which was first to report on the new store, indicated that current plans are for the Toco Hills store to open in September.
The New York-based chain which is currently riding a wave of resurgence, debuted their smaller format store in metro Atlanta in late 2023 with a roughly 15,000 square foot store in the majority of a former Bed Bath & Beyond at The Avenue East Cobb in East Cobb.
ToNeTo Atlanta reported this past October that the company was also returning to the Edgewood Retail District with a new store. The chain closed their former store in the Moreland Avenue shopping center in 2022 (today occupied by Marshalls) but plan to open a smaller store in place of a former Office Depot later this year.
Unlike the Barnes & Noble of the mid 90s and early 2000s, which stocked tons of DVDs and CDs, today's Barnes & Noble stores feature an overall smaller music and movie selection, instead carrying a curated selection of games, Lego, toys and collectibles, among other offerings.
New Barnes & Noble stores also feel more unique and independent and that's no accident.
Barnes & Noble CEO, James Daunt, appointed to the role following Elliott's 2019 acquisition, advanced a new approach at the retailer, allowing local stores greater autonomy in choosing their merchandise, and layout, making them look and feel more like independent stores.
That said, while new businesses opening is normally a good thing, one has to wonder if adding a private equity-owned chain bookstore to a center already home to a beloved, locally owned and longstanding bookstore in Tall Tales Book Shop, is truly enriching the community. "Enriching community" is after all, "our promise," according to EDENS, owner Toco Hills shopping center.
To be clear, EDENS owns the Publix portion of Toco Hills, signed a 35 year ground lease in 2016 for the portion of the center that includes the upcoming Barnes & Noble but does not own the Kroger portion of the center where Tall Tales Books is located, but, who really treats it as anything but one shopping center?
Established in 1979, Tall Tales was previously located in a space in the Publix portion of the center but has been in the small shop space between Kroger and Pike for about 25 years.
When ToNeTo Atlanta visited the center early Friday, we were apparently the first to make employees and ownership of Tall Tales aware of their upcoming neighbor. Suffice it to say they were none too pleased at news of the new addition.
Interestingly, this is not the first time a large bookstore has been planned for Toco Hills. Around 2002, there was discussion of a new Borders Books & Music opening in the space today occupied by ULTA, but after significant community uproar, that space was at the time leased to Office Depot instead.
It's worth noting too that there is already a Barnes & Noble a few miles away on the campus of Emory University. The Emory store is a "college store" but would seem to have at least some crossover customers with the upcoming Toco Hills store.
The recent opening of private equity-backed bagel franchise Pop-Up Bagel along the Atlanta BeltLine barely a stone's throw from locally-owned independent bagel shop Emerald City Bagels, ignited a fierce debate on social media on the role of ethics and "neighborly behavior" on the part of big businesses and landlords. Barnes & Noble's planned opening at Toco Hills would seem to be a similar discussion.
Barnes & Noble currently operates more than a dozen Atlanta area stores including those in Buckhead, Alpharetta, Dunwoody and Buford, among others. The company also operates university stores at Georgia Tech and Emory. The retailer in 2012 closed its store on Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth, in 2013 closed its store at Camp Creek Marketplace in East Point and in May 2024, closed its longstanding Southlake store (Mount Zion Road), after 27 years in business.
What are your thoughts on the addition of Barnes & Noble to Toco Hills? Do you think two bookstores can survive within the same center? If not Barnes & Noble, what would have preferred to see open in the vacant space at Toco Hills?
Please share your thoughts below
39 comments:
Most retail center leases have a clause that keeps the center from renting space to a direct competitor unless approved by the existing tenant. I bet soon after you let the existing bookstore know about the competing bookstore coming, that the existing bookstore made a call to their landlord and attorney.
>>>EDENS owns the Publix portion of Toco Hills, signed a 35 year ground lease in 2016 for the portion of the center that includes the upcoming Barnes & Noble but does not own the Kroger portion of the center where Tall Tales Books is located<<< ————> Who owns the Kroger side of the shopping center?
The Kroger portion is owned by the Shepherd family of Toco Properties.
Unfortunately for Tall Tales, their landlord is unable to restrict anything within an adjacent center that they don't own. The thought of neighborly courtesy amongst landlords for the good of the neighborhood is folly.
What’s the latest with that B&N Cobb pkwy closing that was rumored on this site some time ago? Thought it was becoming a racetrac. (Not that I want it to! 😞)
“We were none to happy to gleefully break the news to Tall Tales that they are about to go out of business. We took great pleasure in letting them know their lives are over. They will of course immediately sue, and win the day!”
Total sh1t to compete with Tall Tales….it will put them out of business.
Within three miles of Toco Hills are Book Nook, the Barnes & Noble on Emory's campus, Eagle Eye Books, and Half Price Books. Tall Tales has made it through all of that. If their customers are loyal they'll be fine.
Loyal Tall Tales customer here! I'll never go to B&B for anything they can sell me! I might pick up a toy or game for a birthday gift since GameStop closed, but Tall Tales will get 90% of my book business (all but the 10% the part that goes to Eagle Eye for used books!).
I value the personal touch there immensely.
Toco neighborhood is a rooted community and I believe we'll stand with Tall Tales.
Loyal Tall Tales customer here! I would never betray them for a Barnes and Noble. We are loyal to our local independent bookstores and if Barnes and Noble is to succeed they will have to do it on Lego and Banangrams.
Book Nook is right down the street too.
Ughhh. Not a huge Barnes and Nobel fan. Always struggle to find good books there other than mainstream bestsellers. I buy my books at Borders. I feel like they do a better job of curating books I would like
bad intel as usual
Not where we need a book store. Check your statistics to see where it’s necessary.
Northlake area, perhaps. Conyers?
Somewhere with al lower literacy rate?
So you’re saying you will go and shop there.
Unfortunately, the only time I went to Tall Tales (with my granddaughter) the woman working there was so cold and rude I will never go back there to shop. Sorry they may have to compete with a national chain right around the corner though
Yet another example of the avarice, greed, and short-sighted decision-making of property managers and landlords—failing to safeguard the concepts and investments of their existing tenants. Disgraceful.
Unless B&N comes in and sells their merchandise at cut rate prices, Tall Tales has nothing to worry about. Consumers (for the most part) are money grubbing hounds who patronize business based purely on cost, as opposed to service and value. Not trying to defend either B&N or Edens, but ultimately, the success of both stores falls on the shoulders of the consumer.
I never go to B&B at all. I don’t even know what B&B is.
I fiercely support independent bookstores. However, Tall Tales does not have a great selection and they often have to order what you’re looking for. B&N is very different now than the big box purveyor of Fox News-authored drivel that they used to be. Read up on James Daunt and how he has localized the B&N model. I was shocked when I went in to a B&N for the first time in a while. Great selection and actual good books promoted up front, not racks of mass market bestsellers. Competition also breeds evolution, so hopefully Tall Tales can pivot and provide something that B&N cannot. Tall Tales doesn’t currently have any real competition - Eagle Eye is mostly used pop lit. Half-Price is a mass-market liquidator. Emory B&N is not efficient to get into with limited parking. It will be great to finally have a good local bookstore and not have to rely on Amazon. I’m also excited to see how a local B&N caters to the community based on their new model.
For those who haven’t been to a Barnes & Noble since James Daunt’s reinvention of the chain: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/15/barnes-and-noble-bookstores-james-daunt
That’s going a bit overboard. I think the community is itching for a bookstore with a well-curated selection. That doesn’t currently exist in the area. Closest you can get is Virginia Highland books. Not sure why providing a better product is somehow greedy. If Tall Tales is to survive, it has to survive because it provides something customers can’t get elsewhere. There are many, many examples of great bookshops that continue to exist amidst the current retail environment. But they provide something you can’t get from a Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Well-curated selection, availability, welcoming environment, service. Tall Tales hasn’t provided any of those the times that I’ve visited, as much as I wanted to be a loyal customer.
Hmm, I don’t follow the logic of a bookstore in an area with a lower literacy rate. B&N is much different from the old suburban mass market store that it used to be.
Borders has been out of business for 25 years… This might be why bookstores aren’t doing well if that was the last time you bought a book…
I buy my books at B Dalton or Waldenbooks. They sell what I like.
Al lower literacy rate.
They are going to read this and cancel the deal with B&B or Barnes and Nobel or whatever you call it. They will see that everyone hates it and cancel it. They can bring back the Department of Labor unemployment offices in that space instead.
LOL at people paying the prices at the major retailers. Buy used books.
Tall Tales is too woke.
Should they be asleep instead? Sounds like that would allow shoplifting. I don’t understand.
Seek mental help. Landlords are in business to make a profit. Get off your ridiculous high horse. Plebian.
Yes the community is itching, for sure.
I agree! All my books are used and most of them I buy directly at the library when they have sales. Thrifting books should be people’s #1 choice.
Lots of great books out there being resold.
I just take them from the libary and when I’m done I throw them out the bus window at bums.
Oh this will be fun!! A nice nosh at Goldbergs then a stroll over to peruse the periodicals and browse the books and lap up a latte!
Seems I recall that long ago there was a free standing B Daltons here as well. Across the street from the liquor store roughly? I agree that this will probably gut Tall Tales.....
Could only have been a bad day. Referring to one bad experience to mar the reputation of an independent book store that will be struggling against a retail giant is rather mean spirited. Repeat Tall Tales customers know they will receive friendly helpful knowledgeable customer service.
I guess that means there will now be a Starbucks in Toco Hill.
Yes, where the Herb Shop is now
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