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| Barnes & Noble is moving its Marina del Rey store. | |
Barnes & Noble is relocating its store in Marina del Rey, Calif., a short distance, to 4752 Admiralty Way in Waterside at Marina del Rey. An October 4 opening is planned. L.A. Business First reported that "in an ironic twist," the new location is in a building that formerly housed an Amazon Books store, which opened in 2018. Amazon closed all of its Amazon Books locations in 2022.
"It was not many years ago that to close a bookstore was to lose a bookstore in the community forever," said Amy Fitzgerald, v-p of stores at B&N, adding that the move is a positive sign for the bookseller and the industry. "Now we open new ones, usually in much stronger locations. Few things better demonstrate the excitement of successful bookselling these days than opening so many beautiful bookstores."
Fitzgerald added that the irony of opening inside the shell of Amazon Books, part of the corporation that stunted physical booksellers in the past two decades, was not lost on her: "To be opening in a former Amazon Books has a certain schadenfreude for our veteran booksellers. They will especially enjoy setting out to prove that recommendations from real booksellers can beat an algorithm every time."
B&N recently announced that it would be opening a new store nearby, in a former indie bookshop space on the Third Street Promenade in downtown Santa Monica. The company expects to open more than 30 new stores this year.