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Barnes & Noble to close in downtown Naperville

The Barnes & Noble store anchoring one of the most prominent corners in downtown Naperville will close after more than a quarter century in business.

To get a sense of its longevity, the bookshop opened in 1998, about two weeks before Michael Jordan’s memoir, "For the Love of the Game," went on sale. With an upstairs cafe and a massive storefront, Barnes & Noble became a centerpiece of the downtown and its nightlife.

That chapter ends when the mega-bookstore serves its last customers on Jan. 21. In an Instagram post Wednesday, the Naperville Barnes & Noble directed readers to a new store set to open in Oswego’s Prairie Market shopping center in spring 2024.

“It has truly been our honor and privilege to be your bookseller in Naperville for the last 25 years,” the post stated. “While we’re saddened to vacate our current home, we are so excited to stay nearby and in a beautiful new bookstore.”

Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli said the store enjoyed a “wonderful 25-year run” downtown. The space is being actively marketed, Wehrli said, but he’s not aware of any leases that have been signed.

“I'm very confident that we will land somebody who will be very exciting for our downtown,” Wehrli said.

Barnes & Noble was part of a nearly 63,000-square-foot development at the corner of Washington Street and Chicago Avenue. For its 2022 tax bill, the property owner paid $306,731.

The chain’s presence downtown in the 1990s — already home to a plucky independent, Anderson's Bookshop — drew comparisons to the bookstore wars in the movie “You've Got Mail.” Anderson’s remains a downtown fixture.

– Daily Herald staff writer Susan Sarkauskas contributed to this report.

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