The Barnes & Noble in downtown Seattle, Wash., is closing January 18, the Seattle Review of Books reported. The location is in the Pacific Place mall that the Review described as "suffering from closures, empty storefronts, and a massive remodel that has left the space virtually gutted for months." With the closure, "there will officially be no bookstores in the downtown retail core," although there are many independent bookstores in nearby neighborhoods, including Capitol Hill, Queen Anne and the Pike Place Market.
B&N also has a store about eight miles north of downtown in the Northgate Mall, but that shopping center, too, is having problems: it "has largely been sealed off from the public during a massive reconstruction project, with a half-empty food court at one end and a meager few shops at the other," the Review wrote. "Anchor stores like Nordstrom and J.C. Penney have abandoned Northgate, likely putting that Barnes & Noble's future in peril, too."
In January, B&N closed its store in Westwood Village in West Seattle. Including the downtown store, B&N has 11 stores in the greater Seattle area.