Barnes & Noble is planning to take over a major retail space on Chicago’s State Street that was once home to now-defunct rival Borders, adding to a comeback by the bookstore chain in the area and throughout the country.
The retailer said in a statement that it will open a large bookstore this summer at 150 N. State St.
The approximately 31,000-square-foot, multilevel space has been vacant since Old Navy left in 2022. Previously, the space was leased to Borders, the bookstore chain that filed for bankruptcy in 2011 and ceased operations.
Barnes & Noble’s plans on State Street, one of Chicago’s best-known retail streets, are part of a broader expansion in the city and across the United States in recent years.
The company told CoStar News in October that it was on pace to add 65 U.S. stores in 2025, adding to its portfolio of more than 650 locations with a range of formats from 4,000 square feet to more than 30,000.
High-profile deals announced last year included returning to downtown Washington, D.C., which it left in 2015, and downtown Seattle, which it left in 2020.
The 17,538-square-foot Seattle deal was one of the largest downtown leases signed since 2020, CoStar reported in December.
The State Street store will be at the base of an office tower that’s more than a century old. The 16-story building is next to the Nederlander Theatre.
In deals disclosed last year, Barnes & Noble also said it will open an approximately 18,00-square-foot store at 1524 E. 55th St. on Chicago’s South Side early this year and an approximately 20,000-square-foot store in the former Marshall Field and Company Building at 1144 Lake St. in Oak Park just west of Chicago late this spring.
The Oak Park store also is a former Borders.
New York-based Barnes & Noble also said it plans to relocate its store within the massive Westfield Old Orchard shopping mall just north of Chicago in Skokie. Barnes & Noble said the new store will open early this year, spanning more than 22,000 square feet across two levels.
Plans for the State Street store and the Old Orchard relocation were first reported by NBC Chicago.
In late 2024, Barnes & Noble struck deals to move into the former Noel State Bank building in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood and to return to a building in Washington, D.C., where it closed a store in 2011.
Also in 2024, the company opened a North Side store just feet from a former Barnes & Noble space.