Part of when they chose to pull-out may've well had to do with when their lease was up at a location off of Biscayne Blvd. & N.E. 203rd Street that couldn't have sucked more, esp. once the next-door yenta-friendly Bed, Bath & Beyond went ker-plunk well over a year ago, since the Chilli's fronting 203rd is NOT exactly the most-compatible retail draw for the literary set in northeast Miami-Dade and southeast Broward.
This morning there's a good piece at The Wrap that gets into what the company's future plans are.
Borders Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
By Anonymous
Created 02/16/2011 - 06:00
Published: February 16, 2011 @ 6:00 am
Borders, the nation's second largest book chain, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York on Wednesday, and said it will close as many as a third of its U.S. stores.
"It has become increasingly clear that in light of the environment of curtailed customer spending, our ongoing discussions with publishers and other vendor related parties, and the company's lack of liquidity, Borders Group does not have the capital resources it needs to be a viable competitor," Borders Group president Mike Edwards said in a statement.
Read the rest of the article at: http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/borders-files-chapter-11-bankruptcy-24783
More on this topic later as I try to dig up some photos of the Aventura location I've taken over the past year to full demonstrate part of the geography problem they had down the street from me, one that could easily be solved by opening a location in Hallandale Beach.
This Borders was my #2 gift certificate-buying spot for my three nieces in suburban Maryland, after the Aventura Target on Biscayne Blvd. & N.E. 213th Street finally became a grocery location in mid-October, much to my delight.
Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/
Posted on Thu, Sep. 02, 2010
Borders in Aventura to close
At the Borders in Aventura, about half a dozen yellow and black signs hang from the ceiling. More are stapled to the bookshelves. The signs bear bad news for local book lovers who still like adhere to what has for some become a quaint notion: books should be bought in person, from a store in your neighborhood, even if it is a national chain.
"EVERYTHING MUST GO!" one reads.
"STORE CLOSING. THIS LOCATION ONLY!" another says.
The Borders in Aventura will make its final sale on Oct. 16, after 16 years of selling books, coffee, music, toys and assorted knickknacks at 19925 Biscayne Boulevard, just south of where Ives Dairy road intersects with U.S. 1.
Aventura will be left with one major book store - Barnes & Noble - whose future is far from certain as that company is currently up for sale.
The Borders in Aventura is closing because its sales didn't meet company objectives, according to Borders spokeswoman Mary Davis. Employees who are in good standing will be given the chance to transfer to other stores with available positions. Others employees will be offered severance packages. Davis didn't say if any employees would be laid off.
The cafe in the store was packed on Wednesday afternoon, and a steady stream of customers browsed the aisles, some no doubt drawn by the closing sale in which all books, CDs and DVDs are 20% off, while gift items, like games, puzzles, or key chains are discounted by 30%.
The discounts are unlikely to increase by much, as the company plans to ship any unsold books back to publishers or to other stores. (That would be better than that happen after the closure of Borders sister company WaldenBooks, which used to operate at the Aventura Mall. When the chain closed all its stores, dumpster diving readers started a campaign to save the books that the company had unceremoniously thrown away.)
The sale came as little consolation for Robert Gardiener, 30, of Hollywood, who had been a regular customer.
"It's horrible," he said. "We come here at least once a week for the cafe and to check out books and this totally is a bummer."
Like a lot of the store's customers, Gardiener is a Borders person -- he prefers Borders over Barnes & Noble the way some people prefer Macs over PCs or vice-versa. He choses Borders over its competitor because he finds the store to be "less congested," and because he had developed a good rapport with the employees.
Margo Mintzer, 74, of Aventura, has been coming to the store since it opened. For the last year, she's met with a knitting group once a week in the cafe.
"I'm very sad about it," she said. "When I pulled up and saw those yellow stickers, I was like, what are we going to do now?"
Mitnzer is worried that it will be difficult for the group to find enough seats at Barnes & Noble or at one of the nearby Starbucks once the Borders closes. That's a concern shared by Alina Balean, 25, a graphic designer who frequents the store enough to be the 'mayor' on Foursquare.
She's been coming to the location for 8 years. It's close to her home in Hallandale, and is a convenient place to hang out, listen to music, read and buy books. Balean sees Borders as a valuable "third place," somewhere she can go that is neither home nor work, where she can go to be free of her routine and to-do lists.
Now that Borders is closing, she's worried that the Barnes & Noble and the Starbucks will be too crowded, and she doesn't think the mall is a good option either.
"They're no common place to go," she said. "If you want to go hang out somewhere, where are you going to go?"
The closure of the Aventura store at a time when the company is struggling. On Wednesday, Borders announced that its second quarter revenue fell 12 percent. Books sales have been weak, and an increase in online sales has failed to make up the difference.
For Lauren Grabois, a first grade teacher at the Aventura City of Excellence Charter school who was shopping at Borders on Wednesday, the store's pending closure -- and the dire situation of bookstores in general -- is cause for concern.
"I think it's very said that a bookstore has to close period," she said. "I think that people should be coming there more often as opposed to other places where they are spending their time."
