{"id":503440,"date":"2026-01-09T09:44:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/503440\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T09:44:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:44:29","slug":"barnes-noble-to-open-largest-chicago-store-after-other-successful-openings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/503440\/","title":{"rendered":"Barnes & Noble to open largest Chicago store, after other ‘successful’ openings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n We break down complex business news to help you understand how money moves in Chicago and how it affects you.\n <\/p>\n

Barnes & Noble is set to open four Chicago area stores in the first half of the year, including its largest Chicago location in the Loop.<\/p>\n

The company confirmed plans to open a 30,000-square-foot flagship location at 150 N. State St. in June. The space was last home to Old Navy, before it closed in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chicago market is a very important one for us, and we\u2019re really happy to be opening in the Loop and to open a store of this size,\u201d said Janine Flanigan, vice president of store design for Barnes & Noble.<\/p>\n

The bookseller\u2019s national expansion plans have been booming \u2014 2025 saw 58 locations open and 60 stores are planned this year.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the company opened a store in Wicker Park at the historic Noel State Bank building<\/a> and a Lincoln Park store at Clark Street and Diversey Parkway.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Both locations] have been hugely successful,\u201d Flanigan said. \u201cWe\u2019ve gotten so many customer compliments and so much activity in both of those locations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other store openings planned include Hyde Park, at 1524 E. 55th St., and a relocation at the Westfield Old Orchard mall in Skokie. Both are scheduled to open at the end of February, the company said.<\/p>\n

An Oak Park store is also opening in May at 1144 Lake St., the former Marshall Field & Co. building<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Loop location is still in the early stages of design and development, and it may open in multiple phases, Flanigan said.<\/p>\n

The three-floor store will also include a cafe, which will likely not be part of the initial opening phase.<\/p>\n

Barnes & Noble, the largest retail bookseller in the country, experienced over a decade of store closures, before the emergence of TikTok\u2019s \u201cBookTok\u201d trend and a change in company leadership, both of which helped drive its expansion plans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the company launched more new bookstores in a single year than it had from 2009 to 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore, stores were very corporate driven,\u201d she said. \u201cThey looked the same. There were paid spots for books and they didn\u2019t necessarily relate to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now, stores choose which books to feature, making each store unique, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We break down complex business news to help you understand how money moves in Chicago and how it…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":503441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-503440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115864499950272443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}