New Barnes & Noble bookstore opens in Chicago Loop, long-shuttered one is torn down in Gold Coast

A new Barnes & Noble bookstore opened in the heart of downtown Chicago on Wednesday, while separately, a building that used to house an old Barnes & Noble store in the Gold Coast was being demolished.

Barnes & Noble opened its newest bookstore at 150 N. State St., at the northwest corner of the intersection with Randolph Street. Local author Jasmine Warga was on hand to cut the ribbon and sign copies of her book, "The Unlikely Tale of Chase and Finnegan."

Costumed character Pete the Cat was also in attendance.

The bookstore features more than 20,000 square feet of books, along with toys, games, magazines and gifts.

The lower floors of the building most recently housed an Old Navy, which closed in 2023. Before that, the space was occupied by Barnes & Noble's onetime competitor, Borders, before that chain went completely out of business in 2011.

Earlier buildings on the same site famously housed the Shoppers Corner five-and-dime store for much of the 20th century.

"We are delighted to restore this wonderful building as a home to a major bookstore," James Daunt, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble, said in a news release. "Returning to The Loop reinforces a significant commitment to Chicago where we have now opened four new bookstores in the last year."

A new Barnes & Noble recently opened in the historic former Marshall Field's store building at 1144 Lake St. in west suburban Oak Park. New locations have also opened this year at the Hyde Park Shopping Center, at 1524 E. 55th St. in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, and at the Westfield Old Orchard shopping center in north suburban Skokie — where Barnes & Noble moved in February from an earlier location that dated back to 1994.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated development, the wrecking has come for a building that used to house a Barnes & Noble at 1130 N. State St. in the Gold Coast, about a mile and a half north of the new Loop location.

The neighboring building at 1120 N. State St., which formerly housed a Lou Malnati's pizzeria, was also being torn down this week.

The buildings were sold to Newcastle Investors for $61 million in late 2019, according to published reports. Shortly before the sale, Newcastle's plan for a 42-story residential high-rise was withdrawn amid community opposition, the Chicago Tribune reported at the time.

A scaled-back proposal from Newcastle was approved by the City Council in 2021, but Newcastle ended up selling the property to Convexity Properties last year for $39 million, according to published reports.

Reports indicate plans for a new 28-story, 304-unit residential building on the site of the old Barnes & Noble and Lou Malnati's.

Plans for the site also seemed to indicate that the new building would occupy the footprint of the long-shuttered Mid-City Parking lot facing Elm Street, right across from the Hangge-Uppe nightclub and the neighboring cocktail lounge Sparrow.

The Barnes & Noble at State and Elm was one of the last in Chicago when it closed in 2020, but the bookstore chain has since rebounded.