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| WORD's current location in Jersey City | |
WORD Bookstore in Jersey City, N.J., will move from its original home at 123 Newark Avenue to a new space off of Hamilton Park early next year. Store owner Christine Onorati plans to start whittling down the store's inventory after the holiday shopping season and hopes to be open for business in Hamilton Park by the end of February 2022.
Onorati reported that she's signed a "good, long lease" with a "wonderful landlord" who is well known in Jersey City for supporting his small business tenants. At around 1,200 square feet, the store's future home is less than half the size of the current space, which will allow Onorati and her team to be "a little leaner" and a "little more curated." She's found over the years that especially in urban areas with high rents, "smaller can be better."
For about six years, Onorati noted, WORD Jersey City had a cafe, which was perhaps the biggest reason that she initially went for such a large space. After years of trying, however, the cafe never quite took off the way Onorati had hoped. The goal was to get "non-bookstore people in" to buy food and drink, but WORD J.C. ended up "selling food and drink to existing bookstore customers."
After considering options like leasing the cafe to a third party, she decided to shut down the cafe about two years ago. Once the cafe was closed, Onorati looked at other options, like subletting part of the bookstore, but it all seemed like too much of a headache. Around January 2021, she put out feelers inquiring about any available spaces.
Onorati said the neighborhood WORD is moving into is full of families, a little quieter than Newark Avenue, and has some beloved small businesses, like a children's store and an ice cream shop. She described Hamilton Park as the "Prospect Park of Jersey City," adding that the new space is literally on the park. Neighborhood residents are already excited about an independent bookstore opening in the area, and Onorati said she and her team are looking forward to the move.