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| The space Ben McNally is vacating. | |
Toronto's Ben McNally Books, which was facing an uncertain future with its current lease at 366 Bay St. due to expire September 1, "has received a temporary reprieve after Ben and Rupert McNally, the father-and-son proprietors, signed a short-term lease for a new location in the city's downtown," Quill & Quire reported. The 2,025-square-foot location at 317 Adelaide Street features a 77-foot frontage "in a unit that was formerly used as a design showroom" under a lease that runs through next January. Plans call for making the move within the next two weeks.
"It's really a beautiful space. We loved the space the moment we went into it," said Ben McNally, adding that the location is move-in ready for what he called the bookshop's "bare-bones operation" during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The future remains less certain. "We're not going to stop looking for a long-term place," says Rupert McNally. "We always liked the place we're moving into, but we're not sure about the neighborhood.... Who knows? It may turn out to be a good long-term location. This gives us a chance to see the neighborhood, which we wouldn't have been able to do before."