A Major Bookstore is Coming to Dubuque’s Asbury Plaza

A new major bookstore chain is coming to Dubuque's Asbury Plaza this spring, a somewhat surprising announcement as the same chain just announced the closing over 30 stores earlier this month.

Barnes & Noble will open a store in Asbury Plaza, inside the former Pier 1 Imports location, later this year. The storefront was most recently used as Spirit Halloween during the late summer/early fall season. Anyone who has driven through the strip-mall has likely noticed the front has been decorated with Barnes & Noble branding in lieu of its opening.

The Telegraph Herald was the first to report the bookstore's opening, with Joe Bell, Director of Corporate Communications for Cafaro Co., which owns the vast majority of storefronts in Asbury Plaza, commenting on the store's imminent arrival in the Key City:

It’s always good to see another bookstore. We know their reputation precedes them. It’s a fine name in books across America, and we are pleased they are coming here. - Joe Bell, per Telegraph Herald

The building is a 9,000-square-foot space, significantly smaller than the average 25,000-square-foot size of your average Barnes & Noble store. It seems the store's new strategy will be opening stores that are a quarter of the size of their typical ones. Some Barnes & Noble stores even feature two-stories, but that seems no longer to be the case with new stores.

The Barnes & Noble name is synonymous with books, and is probably the store most think of when they consider purchasing a book from a brick-and-mortar building. The company is the world's largest retail bookseller, but they also sell DVDs, Blu-Rays, educational items, newspaper, magazines, toys, and more.

One thing I've long loved about Barnes & Noble is they're one of the few retailers that carries The Criterion Collection brand of DVD/Blu-Rays en masse. Criterion has been restoring and preserving both classic and contemporary films for home media release. Their DVD/Blu-Ray sets are defined by their many bonus features and often feature exclusive books that tell of a specific film's production among other details. I can't recommend them enough.

Dubuque's Barnes & Noble store is set to open in the springtime, potentially as early as April. Read more on the Telegraph Herald's website.