Barnes & Noble plans to relocate its longtime bookstore at Waterside Shops this summer about a mile south on U.S. 41 in Naples.
The move to the former Big Lots store at 4149 Tamiami Trail N. in the Burlington-anchored Park Shore Plaza in Naples will increase local square footage for the national bookseller rather than downsize space as the chain recently did when relocating its store within Coconut Point in Estero.
The highly visible spot Barnes & Noble has occupied for more than 30 years on the edge of Waterside Shops at the northwest corner of U.S. 41 and Seagate Drive is a premium location that already has been leased by a new tenant but neither the upscale open-air mall nor its owner, The Forbes Co., will provide details yet.
Barnes & Noble, an original tenant at Waterside Shops, has operated as a junior anchor there since 1992. The bookstore will move this year from its two-story freestanding outparcel of 24,000 square feet to an inline space of slightly more than 35,000 square feet between Saks Off Fifth and HomeGoods in Park Shore Plaza.
“We’re going up here. We were 24,000 before. Now we’re going to 35,000,” said Janine Flanigan, senior director of store planning and design for Barnes & Noble. “That’s an incredible store for us. The current store is phenomenal. It would be wonderful to have that square footage.”
The move provides Barnes & Noble the chance to leave behind an old building for a fresh new start that is representative of the brand’s latest retail strategy. The bookseller is redesigning its stores nationwide to improve the in-person, brick-and-mortar buying experience with brighter, focused displays, so the pending move allows the bookseller to introduce its new business model to the Naples market.
“This really gives us the opportunity to use our new design to give the store a refresh, so it’s really very, very fortunate,” Flanigan said.
The new location will retain a coffee shop inside as part of the store, too.
“Absolutely. We will continue to have the cafe in that building,” Flanigan said.
Unlike the recent move within Coconut Point, where Barnes & Noble was temporarily closed for nearly a year before reopening in its new space, the Naples move won’t require that downtime.
“We’re looking at probably a week lag between the two just so that we can move the store team over, and they’ve had a chance to close out the old store and then get into the new store and get set up there. We’re looking at some time this summer,” said Flanigan, noting that the transition probably will be in late July.
“It’s wonderful when you have a store there previously because you have an idea of what sells. Our store team there is fantastic, and so they will be the ones who are tailoring their assortment and a lot of the books to that market.”
At the end of last year, Barnes & Noble similarly moved into a former Big Lots store in Paramus, New Jersey.
“It was 35,000 square feet also, and we created such a beautiful store there,” Flanigan said. “And I’m sure we’re going to take all of the learnings from that store, a lot of the layout and the design from there and apply it here. We really were able to utilize that space really well.”
Flanigan said she doesn’t know what new retailer will be moving into the current bookstore in Naples.
“I know that they’re doing some redevelopment, but I do not know what’s going in our space,” she said.
Mall management is not expected to announce news about the bookstore’s replacement until after the space is vacated.
Meanwhile, a shoe warehouse pop-up store is temporarily operating this month in the Park Shore Plaza space where Big Lots closed in late January. Big Lots is not reopening a new area store elsewhere, but the discount store chain still has two other regional locations on U.S. 41. Those stores are at Gulf Gate Plaza in East Naples and Prado at Spring Creek in Bonita Springs.
More Waterside changes
In addition to Barnes & Noble relocating, two more major changes are planned for freestanding buildings at other corners of Waterside Shops.
Expect an announcement within the next 60 to 90 days about the long-anticipated successor to the two-story space Nordstrom vacated in 2020, as well as news about a new restaurant coming to a former bank building off Seagate Drive. Although both buildings are reportedly leased, neither Forbes nor Waterside Shops management are revealing details yet.
Development activity and permits have not been filed yet with Collier County government for the nearly 80,000-square-foot former Nordstrom store at 5489 Tamiami Trail N., but records show a preliminary application meeting last fall for a large restaurant planned in the former U.S. Trust building on more than an acre at 765 Seagate Drive.
A site development plan amendment to the Pelican Bay planned unit development will be proposed to convert the nearly 10,000-square-foot former bank building into a restaurant with an outdoor dining component. The building on the corner of Seagate Drive and Myra Janco Daniels Boulevard fronts the Waterside parking garage across from St. William Catholic Church.
The restaurant’s name and concept are not available yet, but the new dining option will join Waterside Shops’ other full-service restaurants, most of which are chain locations: BrickTop’s, Brio Italian Grille, California Pizza Kitchen, Santa Fe Cafe and True Food Kitchen.
The “Tim Aten Knows” weekly column answers local questions from readers. Email Tim at tim.aten@naplespress.com.
