Bookseller Also To Manage DePaul’s Lincoln Park Campus Bookstore

DePaul has signed a 15-year agreement with Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, Inc. to open a public retail bookstore in downtown Chicago and to assume management of academic sales at its Loop and Lincoln Park campuses. Under the terms of the deal, Barnes & Noble will build and manage a new, two-level “academic superstore” on the north end of the DePaul Center at 1 E. Jackson Blvd. It also will operate DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus bookstore at 2425 N. Sheffield Ave., and provide online textbook services to students on other campuses. The new Barnes & Noble at DePaul Center is expected to open in mid-2005.

The superstore will occupy 30,000 square feet of space on the concourse and main floor of the DePaul Center and will serve DePaul’s academic community as well as the greater South Loop neighborhood. It will include a general reading area and reference department, a café and a marketplace on the first floor. Textbooks, school supplies, giftware and DePaul insignia clothing will be sold on the lower level. The bookstore, which will have extended weekday and weekend hours, is expected to become a major meeting place for the DePaul and South Loop communities.

“One of the driving forces behind this deal—which was forged with input from DePaul students, faculty and staff—was that bringing a Barnes & Noble superstore to the Loop Campus would increase our ability to provide students with expanded resources and an enhanced academic environment,” said Scott L. Scarborough, executive vice president for Operations at DePaul. “Because Barnes & Noble will serve as an anchor for the retail component of the DePaul Center, it also will generate needed revenue that can then be used to help us control university costs.”

Barnes & Noble’s presence also will help energize further development in the South Loop, according to Ty Tabing, executive director of the Greater State Street Council.

Tabing said the bookstore will strengthen the development plans for Pritzker Park, which is located on the northwest corner of State and Van Buren streets, and which is slated for a build-out in 2005. “It’s going to be a good South Loop anchor,” said Tabing. “Coupled with the Pritzker Park project, it speaks to forward momentum and to the importance of the burgeoning student population to the future of the Loop.”

The bookstore announcement comes on the heels of the opening of another major academic development in the South Loop. University Center, a multi-college residence hall at 525 S. State Street, opened its doors to 1,700 students from DePaul, Roosevelt University and Columbia College Chicago this fall. These students are expected to be among those who take advantage of the amenities that will be offered by the new bookstore.

Founded in 1873, Barnes & Noble is one of the nation’s largest booksellers. The company operates more than 500 campus bookstores for many of the nation’s top schools including Columbia, Yale and Harvard universities. According to Barnes & Noble, these stores illuminate the neighborhoods they occupy and feature author signings, book club gatherings, poetry readings, musical performances and other programs that help to transform their communities into academic cultural centers. In Chicago, it manages bookstores for the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Loyola and Roosevelt universities and the Illinois Institute of Technology.

“It is an honor to have been selected to operate the DePaul University bookstores,” said Max J. Roberts, president of Barnes & Noble College Booksellers. “We look forward to providing outstanding customer service to the general public and to DePaul’s faculty, staff and students.”

According to university administrators, one of the reasons Barnes & Noble was identified as a good partner for DePaul is because of its commitment to nonprofit programs that help society and promote education, both of which reflect DePaul’s mission of service. Barnes & Noble actively supports programs such as Teach for America, a national initiative that encourages college graduates to teach in the nation’s neediest urban and rural public schools. It also will offer management training opportunities for DePaul student employees of the bookstore.

DePaul is the largest Catholic university in the nation with 23,570 students and a primary mission of teaching and service.

Note to Editors: Reporters interested in receiving an artist’s rendering of the Barnes & Noble at DePaul Center lobby (see link above) should contact Valerie Phillips: 312/362-5039 or vphillip@depaul.edu.