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 is 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 represent a similar quandary.
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
3 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.
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