Columbia Barnes & Noble ready to reopen after leaving beleaguered mall

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Barnes & Noble will open a new Columbia bookstore on Wednesday, March 6, at 6090 Garners Ferry Road in The Shoppes at Woodhill shopping center, alongside Target, World Market and Party City.

The bookstore opens officially with author B.B. Alston cutting the ribbon and signing copies of his books, according to a news release. The new location showcases the design seen in the most recent Barnes & Noble store openings. The new bookstore will also feature a B&N Café.

“Barnes & Noble returns to Columbia after the shortest of departures when Richland Mall closed for demolition,” Barnes & Noble James Daunt said in the news release. “We are especially pleased to retain a brick-and-mortar bookstore in a community when, for the last 20 years, closure was almost certain to mean its permanent loss. Better still, we now open very beautiful bookstores and the new Columbia Barnes & Noble is both stunning and expansive.”

Barnes & Noble says the company is enjoying a period of tremendous growth thanks to a strategy to hand control of each bookstore to its local booksellers. The company is experiencing strong sales in existing stores and has been opening many new stores after more than 15 years of declining store numbers, the release stated. In 2023, Barnes & Noble opened more new bookstores in a single year than it had in the whole decade from 2009 to 2019. The bookseller expects to open more than 50 new stores in 2024.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome our longtime customers into their brand-new Columbia Barnes & Noble,” store Manager John Garvin, Barnes & Noble bookseller of nine years, said in the release. “Over the past 26 years we’ve developed so many close relationships with our customers, and we know they’ll be just as excited to see their favorite booksellers again, now in a beautiful new bookstore.”