Industry news
University of Winnipeg Bookstore set to move in 2010
Big changes are taking place at the University of Winnipeg Bookstore. Several weeks ago, it became the latest Canadian campus bookseller to be taken over by the U.S.-owned Follett Higher Education, which currently manages nearly 40 other Canadian stores. An even bigger change, however, will be taking place early in 2010 – a move to a new location, right in the middle of downtown Winnipeg.
According to representatives from the University of Winnipeg, the new bookstore will be the anchor tenant of a planned student/community complex called The University of Winnipeg ANX. Located at 491 Portage Avenue, the 38,000 square-foot building – converted from an old Greyhound bus station – will accommodate a 6,000 square-foot bookstore, as well as several other yet-to-be announced businesses and services.
According to Follett of Canada director of public relations Elio Distaola, the new store – which will be three times the size of the current location – will continue to stock all of the required course texts, but it will also begin carrying a much greater quantity of trade titles, magazines, and general merchandise, in order to attract a wider array of customers. “It’s just a matter of product shift, essentially,” says Distaola, adding that the store itself will be designed to look more like a trade store. All of the current staffers, including store manager Scott Spearman, have been asked to continue on in the new location.
If the ANX store succeeds with trade consumers, it could help fill the void left by McNally Robinson Booksellers, which closed a shop in the same neighbourhood – mere feet away – in 2008.
RSS feed