WICHITA — Wichita’s last Waldenbooks is closing.
The Waldenbooks at Towne West Square is one of 200 stores Borders Group plans to close in its Waldenbooks and Borders Express segment, which includes outlet stores.
“We think it’s a good strategy for our overall business,” says spokeswoman Mary Davis.
Borders Group, which is based in Ann Arbor, Mich., is the nation’s second-largest bookstore chain.
“The rightsizing allows us to reduce a number of stores with operating losses,” Davis says.
She won’t say how well the Waldenbooks performed here.
There’s no firm closing date, but it likely will be early in the new year.
“Our goal really is to emerge with a significantly smaller, more profitable Waldenbooks small business,” Davis says.
4 Comments
Rightsizing.
My head twitched a little when I read that word. Ugh.
That’s too bad, I used to live at Waldenbooks and B Dalton, back when I used to go to the malls almost weekly. I haven’t been in a mall for almost a year now…so it’s probably MY fault they’re closing.
I do carry a Border’s Rewards card still, but my girls get more use out of it than I do. Who has time to sit and read anymore?
rjl: “Rightsizing” is merely an ugly neologism; it’s the British “made redundant” that makes me crazy. It sounds… I dunno, avoidable. Deliberate, maybe.
I *really* hope the west-side Borders doesn’t close. I refuse to believe we read less than the east-siders