Aaron LaPrise, Principal and Retail Specialist at Cushman & Wakefield | PICOR, recently signed a deal with Barnes & Noble, bringing a new location to Tucson at the Oracle and Wetmore Shopping Center, They will occupy 16,056 square feet (sf) at the former Joann’s location at 4380 N Oracle Rd, Suite 150, with plans to open this fall.
This isn’t just a one-off. Barnes & Noble is in the middle of a major expansion, set to open 60+ stores in 2026, bringing its total to around ±600 nationwide. Much of the credit goes to CEO James Daunt, who took the reins in 2019 when the company was posting losses of over $125 million. Daunt shifted the focus back to books, scaled back the push into games, toys, and home décor, and gave local store managers more control over what goes on their shelves. The turnaround has been significant. Barnes & Noble and its U.K. counterpart Waterstones, both owned by Elliott Advisors, now generate a combined $400 million in profits from approximately $3 billion in sales.
It’s not just Barnes & Noble. Bookstores across the nation are expanding, including right here in Tucson. Stacks Book Club, the popular indie bookstore and coffee bar in Oro Valley, announced in August 2025 that it is expanding to a second location at 2920 E. Broadway Blvd. on the Sunshine Mile. Dave Hammack, Principal and Retail Specialist at C&W | PICOR represented the landlord in the deal. Stacks started as a social media account, became a pop-up, and now has 25,000 customer accounts and a store so packed that customers sometimes can’t find a seat.
Meanwhile, Tucson’s oldest bookstore, The Book Stop on Fourth Avenue, was set to close permanently at the end of last year, until a new owner stepped in to save it. With so many things going digital, this is one area where the traditional form is still thriving.
In the U.S., the majority of books people read are still on paper. Last year, 762 million print books were purchased, while e-book and audiobook sales remain in the low hundreds of millions. Global surveys show 65% of readers prefer physical books, compared to 21% who prefer e-books and 14% who prefer audiobooks.
A big contributor to the print resurgence is BookTok, the book community on TikTok where people share and recommend their favorite reads, like an online book club with millions of members. According to The Wall Street Journal, overall print sales typically fluctuate by just 1–2% per year, but BookTok authors saw a 20% increase in a single year. That kind of influence doesn’t go unnoticed. Even Barnes & Noble and other book stores are now featuring dedicated displays for books trending on BookTok.
Women are a particularly valuable audience in this space. According to the Authors Guild, women read nearly twice as many books as men and account for the majority of fiction sales. They also tend to buy not just for themselves, but for their kids, partners, and as gifts. Research from the Wharton School found that women are more likely to treat shopping as an experience rather than a task, they browse longer, pay attention to the environment, and are more inclined to visit other stores in the same shopping center. That makes a bookstore with a coffee shop, events, and BookTok displays a strong tenant, because it attracts customers who come to stay and naturally cross-shop nearby retailers and restaurants.
The broader trend supports this, too. Over the last several decades, and accelerated post-pandemic, retail has been shifting toward experiences over goods. Cushman & Wakefield reports that U.S. consumers now dedicate a near-record one-quarter of their budget to experience-based spending. Stores that give people something memorable, not just a transaction, are the ones that thrive. Bookstores fit that mold well. Most have a coffee shop where people can settle in and browse. There’s cozy seating, author events, kids’ story times, and book clubs. A visit feels like something to look forward to, not an errand to check off.
And in an era where the U.S. Surgeon General has called loneliness and isolation an epidemic, people are looking for places to belong. Experiential retail taps into that by turning stores into gathering places, and bookstores may be the most natural fit. Book clubs, author events, story times, and coffee shops give people a reason to show up, stay a while, and come back.
For the Oracle and Wetmore Shopping Center, Barnes & Noble is the kind of tenant that checks a lot of boxes: a national brand on an upswing, a built-in audience, and a format designed to drive foot traffic and dwell time. It’s a strong addition to the center and to Tucson’s retail market.
SOURCES
“Book Sales Up, Readership Down.” The Authors Guild, 25 Jan. 2022, authorsguild.org/news/book-sales-up-readership-down/.
Danziger, Pamela N. “Barnes & Noble Preps For An IPO Amid Plans To Open 60 New Stores In 2026.” Forbes, 26 Dec. 2025, www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2025/12/26/barnes–noble-preps-for-an-ipo-amid-plans-to-open-60-new-stores-in-2026/.
Engel, Anne Bogel. “What Avid Readers Do Differently and Why 80% of Books Are Bought by Women.” Modern Mrs Darcy, 24 June 2015, modernmrsdarcy.com/avid-readers/.
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Mendoza, Jessica, host. “Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.” The Journal, The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 2024, www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/readers-cant-get-enough-of-booktok-publishers-are-cashing-in/495bc001-96d8-47c5-8dd4-c23137e6c953.
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Rico, Gabriela. “Popular Oro Valley Bookstore to Open Tucson Location.” Arizona Daily Star, 28 Aug. 2025, tucson.com/news/local/business/real-estate/article_b5a6eb2d-133c-422b-ab7d-2a46612ed5b9.html.
Rockey, Rebecca, and James Bohnaker. “The Rise of the Experiential Economy.” Cushman & Wakefield, 7 Apr. 2025, www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/insights/the-rise-of-the-experiential-economy.
Tran, Jackie. “Stacks Book Club to Launch Flagship Midtown Location in Early 2026.” Tucson Foodie, 19 Aug. 2025, tucsonfoodie.com/2025/08/19/stacks-book-club-to-launch-flagship-midtown-location-in-early-2026/.
“Which Do You Prefer: An E-book or Physical Book?” Stora Enso, 16 June 2022, www.storaenso.com/en/newsroom/news/2022/6/which-do-you-prefer-an-e-book-or-physical-book.
