Got books? Bookstore chain eying 2026 opening for new Colorado Springs location
Alexander Edwards, The Gazette
Three is, or rather will be, company for a bookstore chain building a new location in one of Colorado Springs’ busiest retail areas.
Colorado Springs is home to two Barnes & Noble bookstores. And in roughly one year, there will be a third. The newest shop will be built at 3173 Cinema Point within the bustling First & Main shopping center, according to city documents.
Plans to build on a then-vacant lot were originally cryptically called “Cinema Point Retail.” By late last year, however, documents submitted to the city revealed Barnes & Noble wanted to build a new store, bucking an ongoing trend of some retail stores slowing or stopping expansion.
“We are excited about the store opening in Colorado Springs,” said Vice President of Store Planning and Design Janine Flanigan. “The store is tentatively planned to open summer of 2026. The store will be about 18,000 square feet and modeled in our new design, seen in our most recent store openings.”
The New York City-based bookseller plans to open more than 60 stores in 2025.
This bucked a trend, as many national retailers started to downsize their operations and slow construction projects due to customers buying from online giants like Amazon. That appears to be shifting yet again as some large retailers, notably Burlington and Boot Barn, are making aggressive expansion pushes, according to a May report from CoStar, a commercial real estate information, analytics and news platform.
Not one to be left behind (again), Barnes & Noble is driving in on aggressive expansions with all cylinders firing: It opened 57 stores last year, according to previous coverage by The Gazette.
“Since 2019, and with leadership of (CEO) James Daunt, Barnes & Noble has reversed a down trending in sales and we’ve been quite successful,” Flanigan told The Gazette in December. “We will have opened more stores in a single year, than we have in the last (10) combined. As part of the opening strategy, we are opening different size stores. We opened stores from 4,000 square feet to 35,000 square feet.”
The chain also purchased the beloved but bankrupt Tattered Cover, a Denver-based bookstore that had four locations statewide. The company’s location in Colorado Springs had been open for less than two years before getting shut down.
Barnes & Noble did not say whether the Tattered Cover brand would make a comeback in Colorado Springs and there remains one such store in Denver.
Barnes & Noble has two locations in Colorado Springs,795 Citadel Drive E. and 1565 Briargate Blvd.
The building of The Citadel location appears to be up for sale, but Barnes & Noble plans to continue normal operations at the store, Flanigan said.





