Books-A-Million #624
780 E. Merritt Island Causeway, Merritt Island, FL - Sabal Pointe Plaza
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| Today's post is a presentation of Brevard County retail |
In an era where I feel like I'm constantly falling behind on blog stuff and trying to work on my massive backlog of years-old photos, for an interesting change, here's some fresh photos of mine taken not all too long ago covering some current events - happy current events too! After sliding into a slump in the 2000's and 2010's, book stores seemed to be on a decline as digital devices seemed to be on track to make print media obsolete. During that time we lost Borders completely to bankruptcy, while its rivals Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million chugged along, although not without closing a number of stores during that time and culling new store openings to almost nothing. In 2019, it seemed like it was a matter of when, not if, the other two major bookstore chains would succumb to the same fate as Borders, however, something very interesting began to happen. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, bookstores began a revival. Credited to a number of reasons (which are explained in that linked article) such as technology angst, a desire to find a home-away-from-home following lockdowns, and a viral TokTok trend called "BookTok", people began returning to book stores and buying print books again. As such, Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million have both unveiled new store prototypes, begun opening new stores at a brisk pace, and embraced the new trend to unprecedented results. It's quite interesting how a dying category of retail came back to life like that, and in today's post, we'll check out the latest store design from Books-A-Million to see what a bookstore of the future looks like. While both bookstore chains are seeing a net growth, many of the new stores from Barnes & Noble and Book-A-Million have been replacements, typically replacing larger, obsolete older stores with smaller modern designs. The Merritt Island Books-A-Million is one of the replacement cases, so before we jump into the modern incarnation of that store, let's look back at how Books-A-Million relocated not once in Merritt Island, but twice through the years to end up where they are now. Like any story, let's begin with Chapter 1, titled "The Original Location":
Books-A-Million first arrived in Merritt Island in August 1995, moving into a 23,000 square foot slice of the island's original Walmart store (which had moved down the road a year prior). The new Merritt Island Books-A-Million marked the chain's debut along Florida's Space Coast, although later in 1995, a second Brevard County Book-A-Million store would open in Melbourne, across the street from Melbourne Square Mall.
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| The original Merritt Island Books-A-Million is now occupied by a Harbor Freight Tools, and Harbor Freight's facade is a carry-over from Books-A-Million. Between Books-A-Million's closure in 2000 and Harbor Freight's opening in 2013, that space housed a Bealls Outlet for a few years too. |
Books-A-Million would be joined by Big Lots (closed 2009) and Scratch and Dent World Appliances (now Appliance Direct) to fill the remainder of the former Merritt Island Walmart space, however, this location would not be long lived as a bookstore. Citing increased competition from the arrival of Barnes & Noble to Brevard County in 1996, Book-A-Million had some tough decisions to make.
It seems like the arrival of Barnes & Noble had a negative impact on both of Brevard County's Books-A-Million stores, as Barnes & Noble's two new stores in the county were located a mile or less away from each Books-A-Million. After 5 years in operation, Book-A-Million surrendered to Barnes & Noble in Melbourne, closing that store outright in 2000. That same year, Book-A-Million also made the decision to downsize its Merritt Island store, relocating from the old Walmart to a 17,000 square foot space within Merritt Square Mall - its Chapter 2. It appears Book-A-Million was hoping mall traffic would drive business to their new store compared to the freestanding Barnes & Noble across the street, and it seems like that logic paid off.
Books-A-Million would remain at Merritt Square mall for the next 25 years, outlasting the Barnes & Noble across the street which closed at the end of 2016. I'm sure the closure of Barnes & Noble helped drive a little more business to this store, however, Merritt Square began a decline of its own in the years following the closure of Barnes & Noble.
While Merritt Square isn't a dead mall, it's hurting in places. The mall has been struggling to keep in-line tenants over the last decade, and a lot of people in the area will tell you the mall is old and depressing looking. As such, I'd have to guess foot traffic in the mall has been on a decline, and that on top of a rumor I heard about Books-A-Million wanting to stray away from mall-based stores probably led to the decision to move across the road to the latest freestanding location - Chapter 3.
Directly across Route 520 from the mall was this former Pier 1 Imports store, which Books-A-Million would relocate to in 2025. Ironically, this store is located next door to the former Merritt Island Barnes & Noble, bringing a bookstore back to this small retail strip called Sabal Pointe Plaza. After a decently thorough remodel of the former Pier 1 space (which had been sitting empty since that chain's bankruptcy in 2020, outside of a few seasonal runs as Spirit Halloween), the new Books-A-Million would hold its grand opening on August 1, 2025.
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| Photo courtesy of Robert Redd on Google Maps |
A small grand opening celebration was held over the weekend of August 1st, including a ribbon cutting, author signings, an appearance by the Disney Princess Belle, and also free cookies:
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| Photo courtesy of Kate RedHatStudio on Google Maps |
Pictured above was a tray of cookies from the grand opening celebration, iced with a special inscription for the Merritt Island store's opening. Certainly a neat way to celebrate, but not really an item I could have stashed away in my retail collection had I been able to attend grand opening weekend!
After the festivities had died down, I eventually made it up this way to check out what a modern Books-A-Million store is all about. At roughly 8,000 square feet, the new Books-A-Million is half the size of its predecessor at the mall across the road (which we toured on my old flickr account a number of year back - click here and scroll right for a refresher on that store). The size reduction has been a trend for modern book stores, cutting a lot of departments like movies and music, as well as cafes, for a more compact selection focused on books and toys. Entering the store, here's a look across the front portion of the salesfloor. Upon entering, you're welcomed by the new release book section, featuring various displays of the latest from a variety of categories.
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| Photo courtesy of Kate RedHatStudio on Google Maps |
When I visited the store, the cashier was quite bored and was lingering around the front of the store, so I was unable to get many photos of that area. As such, I had to turn to Google for this photo of the new release department's major display prop - the Best Sellers countdown shelf. This shelf changes weekly, showcasing the top 10 books across different categories such as fiction, non-fiction, and kids books. As soon as you walk in this shelf was placed to grab your attention, as I'm sure these are some of the highest-selling items in the entire store.
Leaving the front of the store and the new release displays, there is a main center actionway off which all the store's aisles branch, typical of most Books-A-Million stores of late. The photo above is looking toward the front of the store and all the new release items, with fiction located just behind me.
In this new store there are three primary departments to be found - fiction, non-fiction, and childrens' books. The front left half of the store is home to fiction and its various sub-genres (novels, graphic novels, manga, etc.) followed by a small aisle of toys, with that serving as the transition into the childrens' department in the back left half of the store. The entire right side of the store is home to non-fiction books of all kinds, as well as a small periodical display up by the cash registers.
The toy aisle located about halfway down the left side of the salesfloor is pictured above, and occupies a double wide aisle with some displays in the center and a fancy shelving fixture at the back. At only 8,000 square feet, there wasn't a lot of room to spare for extra merchandise, so much of the non-book related items were cut back in the downsizing, like toys. Overall though, roughly three-quarters of the salesfloor space was dedicated to books in this store, with other stuff like toys, gifts, and collectibles taking a backseat. Larger bookstore buildings tend to fluff the salesfloor with that extraneous merchandise to fill void area, so these compact newer stores don't have that problem and can go back to pushing books first.
Being a smaller space, a few other major departments were cut by Books-A-Million in the move across the street. Two major categories this store cut were the sale of all movies and music, although unlike Barnes & Noble (who still carries a small amount of that product), Books-A-Million seems to have been straying away from those categories in most of their stores (with the exception of some of the chain's largest). Also cut in the move was the store's Yogurt Mountain frozen yogurt shop, which was a reimagining of the mall store's former Joe Muggs' Cafe in the early 2010's when frozen yogurt was all the rage. Like Barnes & Noble's new stores, Books-A-Million tends to cut the cafe out of their new stores and relocations too, with new cafes only opening in spaces that skew on the larger side and have easy access to water hookups.
Looking down the store's left side, the children's book department lies straight ahead in the back left corner.
While not quite as whimsical as its predecessor, Kids-A-Million has been downgraded to just "Kids" on the wall signage, with the same book illustration-style graphics seen around the perimeter wall continuing through that department. While this department was designed to match the rest of the store, it seems pretty formal for a kids book department (although that just may be me thinking back to the days when Borders, Books-A-Million, and Barnes & Noble all designed their kids department to be an island of their own with special theming, story-time stages, and train sets to play with).
The main center actionway dead ends at the back wall, where another decorative book display serves as the transition between childrens' books and non-fiction. Unlike Barnes & Noble's newest stores, which go all-in on fancy lit shelving, Books-A-Million saves the lit shelving for only these centerpiece displays, allowing them to pop out more from the rest of the store.
This store isn't all that wide, as we look across the back wall toward non-fiction. While 8,000 square feet sounds small, there was still quite a bit of variety to be found here in terms of books. 8,000 square feet is around the same size stores like Waldenbooks and B. Dalton would occupy, so it seems like we're going full circle on what bookstores should be like!
While Books-A-Million redid most of this space, there was one major carryover from Pier 1 present in here - the ceiling grid. That grid was a staple of Pier 1 stores, and Books-A-Million only repainted the grid black from its original brown color in the remodel. While Barnes & Noble tends to go exclusively with open ceilings in their newest stores, Book-A-Million appears to adapt to what they inherited, as I've seen a variety of ceiling styles in the latest Books-A-Million openings. For example, while this store has the Pier 1 ceiling grid, this other recent Books-A-Million opening in Beaufort, SC has a complete drop ceiling it inherited from the Citi Trends that was in that space prior.
Unlike Barnes & Nobles' blank brown walls, I like how Books-A-Million is using these pen-ink illustration-style graphics on the walls to break up the empty space. These graphics are subtle and fit the theme of a bookstore well without being too overbearing.
Looking at the store's right side wall back toward the cashier, we're within the non-fiction department here. It appears the bookshelves along the wall are in fact lit, with small lights running across the top of them. A nice touch, and still more subtle than we saw at that linked Barnes & Noble store earlier!
The sign for the non-fiction department is the only one I got a close-up of, featuring the bottom mounted letters on a bracket that juts out from the wall, a typical modern style used also in Publix's Evergreen decor as well as Winn-Dixie's Winn Win 2.0 to create a 3D effect.
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| Photo courtesy of Kate RedHatStudio on Google Maps |
For our last interior photo, we'll turn to Google once again for a close-up of the cash register area, tucked into the store's front right corner behind a small gift item area. To the left of the registers was this store's severely reduced magazine display (3 sections of shelves now compared to this at the old store), and behind the counter itself was a decorative sign featuring Books-A-Million's logo (with "Founded 1917" underneath - I actually didn't realize the company was that old!). Next to that is a quote from author Carl Hiaasen - "Everybody's idea of a great book is different, of course for me it's one that makes my jaw drop on every page". Carl Hiaasen is a fairly prominent author, but interestingly enough, he actually is a bit of a local in these parts - his primary residence is about 50 miles south of Merritt Island in Vero Beach. If you've ever read any Carl Hiaasen, whether it be any of his books for adults (like Strip Tease - a crime classic) or younger readers (Hoot was a favorite of mine), his books are very Floridian, so it was appropriate of Books-A-Million to choose a quote of his for this store! I don't know if this quote is used in all of Books-A-Million's new stores or if the local connection was just a coincidence, but I liked it nonetheless!
Back outside, here's one final look at the new Books-A-Million's exterior. Hopefully Books-A-Million's "Chapter 3" will be successful here in Merritt Island, however, being the only major bookstore in Northern Brevard County probably helps bring people to this location.
As for the former locations of major bookstore chains in Northern Brevard County, all I had to do was tilt my camera just a little to the left of the new Books-A-Million for a glimpse at the former home of Barnes & Noble. After closing in 2016, the Merritt Island Barnes & Noble sat empty until Aldi took over their space in 2020. As you'd imagine, Aldi totally gutted and rebuilt the former Barnes & Noble space to look like a typical Aldi, so not much to see there. Next door to Aldi is a Michaels store, which was previously home to a Toys R Us that closed in 2012.
On my way out, I decided to pull into the parking lot of Merritt Square across the street for a quick photograph of the previous Merritt Island Books-A-Million store - Chapter 2. The signage was gone and the place was emptied out, and with the current state of the mall, I wonder if anything will ever fill this space. Merritt Square did manage to pull off getting Ollie's Bargain Outlet to take over the former Sports Authority, so maybe there will be interest in this space, as a former 17,000 square foot bookstore should be easier to fill than the former 100,000 square foot former Sears at the other end of the mall that's been vacant since 2021!
Anyway, I'll be interested to see what everyone has to say about the latest store design from Books-A-Million. While it lacks the cozy feeling of its predecessor, the store still looked nice overall, and that's essentially the same feeling I have for the latest Barnes & Noble stores I've seen photos of online. I've still yet to visit a new Barnes & Noble myself, but that visit will come before long, as my area is getting a few those over the next year or so. In particular, since we've been talking about the rotation of bookstores in Brevard County, it was just recently announced that the last Barnes & Noble in the county, located in West Melbourne (across from Melbourne Square), will be relocating to a new prototype store in a former Party City a few doors down in the Shoppes at West Melbourne, following the expiration of the current store's lease in 2026. Interestingly, the Shoppes of West Melbourne was where the ill-fated Melbourne location of Books-A-Million closed back in 2000, bringing a bookstore back to that strip after a 26-year hiatus in this game of bookstore musical chairs! Maybe we'll see some coverage of that relocation effort in the future, but for now, we'll close the book on this MFR post until we see what the next chapter unfolds!
So until the next post,
The Albertsons Florida Blogger
