Borders liquidation could provide opportunities

By Arielle Kass

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Borders Group, which had closed six metro Atlanta book stores, will shut down its remaining seven locations as part of a company-wide liquidation announced Monday.

The Ann Arbor, Mich., bookseller once operated more than 1,000 stores nationally and had 399 when the move was made to end all operations and lay off 10,700 employees.

Two liquidation firms, Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Group, will dissolve the company. The move came after a bid fell through from private equity firm Najafi Cos.; creditors and landlords said liquidation was a better deal.

While Borders prepared to disappear, local experts said the metro Atlanta retail market that has seen the addition of few big-box locations could embrace the new space, and area bookstores and publishers said they were prepared for Borders’ demise.

Ruth Coan, a partner at The Shopping Center Group who leased Borders spaces, said most of the stores could draw retailers new to the market or those that want to upgrade their space.

“They are excellent sites with good visibility and signage,” Coan said. “I believe there are going to be a lot of retailers that are going to be grateful to have some new opportunities.”

A Borders store in Dunwoody was retrofitted for Party City while another in Atlanta’s Brookwood Plaza now houses Aveda. Coan said retailers are taking their time, which could bring a delay in filling Borders stores, but retailers are looking.

Scott Amoson, director of research for Colliers International-Atlanta, said the demand to fill big-box space isn’t abundant, but many of the locations could be subdivided. An average Borders store is 25,000 square feet, about half the size of a football field. In the second quarter, metro Atlanta had 35.2 million square feet of vacant retail space, a 10.4-percent vacancy rate, according to real estate services firm CoStar Group.

At Eagle Eye Books in Decatur, general manager Doug Robinson said Barnes & Noble could be hurt in the short term by Borders’ liquidation sale, with shoppers making bargain purchases, but that Barnes & Noble and other booksellers may pick up customers in the long run. He is interested in obtaining some of Borders’ stock, he said.

Others said the disappearance of Borders would likely hurt e-book sales and those of regular books. Simba Information senior trade analyst Michael Norris said some e-book readers visit bookstores to see what books they want to read before buying the electronic version for their e-book reader.

“There are so many people who buy a small number of books in a given year that the absence of a nearby store that they like can really curb how much they buy,” Norris said.

A Cappella Books owner Frank Reiss said some customers have suggested independent stores will benefit from Borders closing, but he believes there is simply a shrinking market for retail bookstores.

He said publishers would be hurt the most by a liquidation, but Kathy Landwehr, Peachtree Publishers vice president and associate publisher, said her company had been dealing with issues from Borders for some time.

Landwehr said Peachtree Publishers, because it was an unsecured creditor, lost $30,000 when Borders filed for bankruptcy. Other bills have been paid. Landwehr called Borders a significant customer, but said the company is not dependent on them.

Reiss, at A Cappella, said there was some satisfaction in seeing the demise of Borders, which put a number of independent stores out of business, but it was short-lived.

“Most of the people who work in the big stores are little guys losing their jobs,” he said. “There’s not a lot of joy.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.