BORDERS SHOWDOWN Only one bid came in for bankrupt bookseller Borders Group by Sunday’s deadline — and it’s from a liquidator. An auction of the company’s assets is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon; going-out-of-business sales could begin as early as Friday. Back in February, Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch said his company might be interested in taking over a few of the remaining 400 Borders locations. Six of them are in Houston. [Publisher’s Weekly; Lynch statement; previously on Swamplot]
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I could easily see B&N moving into the Galleria mall location since they closed their location across the street. Maybe they should shutter their nearby Westheimer/Voss store (it’s huge but they’re only utilizing about 60% of the space; they’ve already closed the coffee place inside; the last couple of times I’ve been there, there were more employees that customers!). I was recently in both the Kirby and Woodlands Borders stores – both looked very “un-maintained”. Don’t know about the other Houston locations but I’m guessing they’re not much different.
Curious about what is going to happen to the Kirby location. That is a very large anchor space to sit unused. Sad to see it go because I prefer going there to Barnes & Noble.
RIP Ale House…
markd, I was just thinking that. Maybe the ghosts have had their revenge after all….
Now people who got their doctorate in comparative literature will really have no where to get a job.
mark and Hellsing, I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday.
Madame’s ghost will be levitating and laughing her arse off in the empty store.
They killed my beloved Ale House and now the circle of life is complete.
B&N would be foolish to believe that they’re not next on the list… it’s just a matter of time, sadly.
While I share the sentiments regarding the demise of the Ale House, I think a correction is in order. My memory tells me, and historicaerials.com confirms, that the Ale House was at the corner of WAla and Argonne, where the Chase parking lot now sits, rather than Kirby, where the Borders parking lot is. historicaerials shows a strip shopping center at WAla and Kirby as far back as 1957.
I sure hope The Galleria moves H&M or Topshop into that huge space.. someone email those fools.
Barnes and Noble has expanded into digital books much more successfully than Borders and also owns a ton of college bookstores. Their retail locations will slow but they’ll be around. Worked at Borders several years ago and I’ll miss it, but it’s a dying business model. Considering my Amazon Prime addiction and my ebook reader, I can’t legitimately fuss about it.
I agree Borders didn’t adapt and therefore did not survive.
We wrote our thoughts on how it will affect commercial real estate in Houston, if anyone is interested –
http://www.thesquarefoot.com/houston/houston-retail-space-borders-bankruptcy-creates-large-vacancies