Johnson's Literary Depot will open in downtown Johnson City, Tenn., this spring, the Times News reported.
The general-interest bookstore will sell new and used titles and will be located in a former bank building at 333 E. Main St. In addition to books, owners Andrew and Ally McElroy will sell locally made art, music, and gifts. They hope to become a hub for community events and are aiming for a late May opening.
The McElroys revealed the bookstore's address on Saturday, Independent Bookstore Day. "One of the reasons why we quickly fell in love with that building is it's kind of, ironically, a bookend to downtown," Andrew McElroy told the Times News. "We really wanted to be on one end of Main St. and allow for people to traverse the whole of Main St. and go into all the different businesses."
They announced their plans to open a bookstore in late February and asked community members to help them assemble their inventory by trading in books for store credit. They hope to have an opening inventory of 10,000 titles, with Ally McElroy noting they're about halfway there. "That's crazy within such a short amount of time. The overwhelming support from the community has been really positive and everybody has been really excited about it."