Menu

Book it: Daytona Barnes & Noble moving to Tomoka Town Center

DAYTONA BEACH — A year and a half after local elementary school students persuaded the CEO of Barnes & Noble to keep his chain’s Daytona Beach location, that store is set to move next month to a new location across town.

The national bookstore chain will close its longtime store at 1900 W. International Speedway Blvd. at the end of the day April 16.

The store will reopen the next morning in its new location at Tomoka Town Center on the east side of Interstate 95, just south of LPGA Boulevard. The “power lifestyle” retail center is directly across from Tanger Outlets mall.

On Monday, construction workers could be seen building out the interior of the new Barnes & Noble store.

Large signs in the front windows tout the soon-to-be new addition to Tomoka Town Center: “Your New Barnes & Noble Coming Soon April 17th” and “Barnes & Noble Now Hiring.”

Meanwhile, the landlord of the soon-to-be vacated Barnes & Noble store at the Best Buy Plaza is proceeding with plans to replace it with a Wawa gas station/convenience store.

The Barnes & Noble store at Tomoka Town Center will be one of the retailer’s new-format stores, confirmed spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating.

“We are excited to be opening one of our new prototype stores in the Daytona Beach community,” Keating wrote in an email.

Keating declined to provide details regarding the new store other than to acknowledge it will be smaller: 15,000 square feet compared to the old 28,000-square-foot store.

The new store “will feature exciting new offerings that we will announce closer to the opening,” she wrote.

Barnes & Noble began rolling out its new prototype stores last year.

In a conference call with stock analysts in November, Carl Hauch, vice president of stores for Barnes & Noble, said the new prototypes feature a “smaller footprint and a clean, contemporary new design where books take the center stage.”

The new format includes “a large book theater located at the heart of the store and lower profile bookshelves that provide an improved browsing and discovery experience,” he said. “They also include plenty of comfortable community seating areas where customers can spend time relaxing, meeting with each other and gathering to talk about books.” Tables in the cafe include USB and electric-charging ports.

Click here to view the full article