The Bronx is about to go bookless.
The Barnes & Noble at Bay Plaza is going the way of the dinosaur after a lease dispute with developer Prestige Properties, the same group behind a massive indoor mall that opened this year.
Bronxites are livid that the store, the only bookseller left in a borough of 1.4 million residents, will soon be shutting down for good.
“To me, it’s an insult,” said Amelia Zaino, 24, a Co-op City resident who has started an online petition to keep the store open. “They say the Bronx is booming, but in a way its the same old Bronx.”
Prestige allegedly jacked up the bookselling behemoth’s rent during lease negotiations, according to David Deason, Barnes & Noble’s vice president of development.
“Our lease is expiring and we worked diligently to extend the lease,” said David Deason, the vice president of development at Barnes & Noble. “The property owner informed us that they had other users who were willing to pay in excess of what Barnes & Noble was paying for the leased space.”
A spokeswoman for Prestige countered by saying the bookstore declined to renew its lease and turned down a space in the new mall.
Zaino, a Fordham grad working on her masters in geographic information science and otherCo-op City residents say the closure is a step backwards for the Bronx.
“The mall is nothing but restaurants and clothing stores,” Zaino said. “I don’t think that this is economic development when you shut down our only bookstore.”
Barnes & Noble has been struggling nationwide and has been shutting down stores on a regular basis. The company shut down its flagship Fifth Ave. location in Manhattan in January.
The Bronx’s last independent bookstore, Books in the Hood, closed in 2011.
Borough residents say that the Bay Plaza shop is more than a bookstore.
“The closing of this Barnes and Noble would be devastating for the Bronx,” said petitioner Jessica Cruz. “Our goal is to prove that this is more than just a retail location; it is a cultural hub–a meeting place for Bronxites to share knowledge and art with one another.”
Barnes and Noble gave book lovers a glimmer of hope.
“We operated our Bronx store and were happy to serve the community for 15 years,” Deason added. “We’ll look to re-open as soon as an opportunity presents itself.”
