Expanding national retailer to take Bed Bath & Beyond space at NewMarket Square

Some shopping developments nationally are having to get creative with the large spaces that Bed Bath & Beyond vacated following its bankruptcy — like opening pickleball courts in them — but not NewMarket Square.

Barnes & Noble Booksellers will open in the 25,000 square feet where Bed Bath & Beyond had been at 21st and Maize Road.

“I think west Wichita will be excited to have a Barnes & Noble,” said Todd Slawson, president of NewMarket Square developer Slawson Cos.

“Every neighborhood needs a great bookstore, right?” said Brandon Mason, Slawson’s director of real estate development.

The store will open by late summer.

“Very quickly, we had two . . . people very interested in the space,” Slawson said. “People want to come into NewMarket.”

He said Barnes & Noble was the best fit.

The New York-based company opened 31 stores last year — more than the total number of new stores it had opened in the previous decade. It’s on track to open 50 to 60 more this year, said Janine Flanigan, senior director of store planning and design.

She said it’s “just a really, really exciting time for Barnes & Noble,” which Elliott Advisors purchased in 2019.

In 2018, the company purchased Waterstones, a retail bookseller in the United Kingdom.

“We’re just out there looking at markets where we’re under served,” Flanigan said.

There’s a Barnes & Noble at Bradley Fair at 21st and Rock Road that she said is doing well.

The new store at NewMarket Square will look different than that one.

Instead of dark wood and carpet and shorter fixtures with rows and rows of book shelves, the new store will be open and bright with taller fixtures.

“We are now designing the stores in what we call rooms,” Flanigan said.

Each genre of books will have its own room, and there will be multiple rooms for gifts and other items, such as notebooks, that the store sells.

“It’s really designed to take you on a journey throughout the store,” Flanigan said.

There also will be a cafe with Starbucks coffee and a menu similar to the one in the Barnes & Noble at Bradley Fair. Flanigan said it’s designed to be a comfortable place to sit and read and recharge devices.

So what about that other national retailer that would have liked this space?

“We do not have a 25,000-(square)-foot space left to do anything,” Slawson said.

The company has a number of other developments around town, though, so Slawson said there are several possibilities where it could go.

“We’re trying to see if we can fit them in somewhere else.”

Look for more news when it’s available along with a sneak peak of the new Barnes & Noble this summer.