Barnes & Noble opens three new stores — here’s where
Barnes & Noble is furthering its expansion as the brick-and-mortar bookstore resurgence continues.
Open-air shopping center owner and developer Big V Property Group has announced the opening of three new Barnes & Noble stores at properties in Texas and South Carolina. All of the new locations — at Alamo Ranch in San Antonio and Southpark Meadows in Austin, and The Shoppes at Woodhill in Columbia, S.C. — were previously home to other retailers and were reconceived and remodeled to accommodate the retailer’s new, smaller format.
“Watching the reinvention and reinvigoration of Barnes & Noble shows the continued strength of brick-and-mortar retail, and it is now a critical component of our tenant mixes,” said Greg Ix, executive VP of leasing at Big V. “Small, independent booksellers are a vital part of retail, but there really is only one Barnes & Noble. We are happy to have leased nearly 75,000 sq. ft. and reinvented rare vacant spaces to accommodate them and look forward to continuing our strong relationship.”
The expansion at the three centers comes on the heels of Barnes & Noble opening four stores in April. Earlier this year, the retailer said it planned to open more than 60 new stores in 2025.
In 2024, Barnes & Noble opened 57 stores — more than it had in the whole decade from 2009 to 2019.
In Austin, Barnes & Noble’s 20,004-sq.-ft. store replaces an Office Max at Southpark Meadows, home to dining, local, and regional retailers as well as Music Meadows, an outdoor communal area that hosts a variety of events all year long. Barnes & Noble’s 17,996 sq.-ft. location also replaces an Office Max at Alamo Ranch in San Antonio.
For the new South Carolina location, Big V Property Group re-leased a 25,000-sq.-ft. former Bed Bath & Beyond at The Shoppes at Woodhill to Barnes & Noble prior to selling the center in December 2024.
[READ MORE: Placer.ai: Are malls cool again?]
“We’re proud of our flexibility to help major tenants find new locations in thriving markets such as Austin and San Antonio,” said Pat Kelly, VP of leasing at Big V. “But Barnes & Noble deserves serious credit for developing a smaller, community-centric prototype that allows it to take locations of 20,000 sq. ft. or so and serve new markets. It’s a tribute to smart retailing.”
Barnes & Noble was acquired by British private equity group Elliott Investment Management in 2019. The all-cash deal was valued at about $683 million. The deal followed Elliott’s 2018 acquisition of Waterstones, the largest retail bookseller in the U.K.
Barnes & Noble operates approximately 600 stores across the United States.
