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The first new Hawaii Pacific University tenant at Aloha Tower Marketplace will be the university’s bookstore, to be operated by Barnes & Noble College Booksellers Inc.
The store and coffee shop will be in the 7,200-square-foot space that was home to the Pipe Dreams Surf Co. and will be a hybrid, serving HPU students and faculty, the broader downtown community and visitors, said Todd Simmons, vice president of marketing communications at HPU.
He eagerly anticipates the store’s merchandise mix, given Barnes & Noble’s expertise in running retail and college bookstores with in-store cafes.
Barnes & Noble College also is likely to stage in-store events, such as author readings and signings, and to be "very focused on ‘life of the mind’ and all those wonderful activities that we appreciate in bookstores," Simmons said.
HPU officials are not yet ready to announce an opening date beyond saying they hope to open the bookstore sometime during the 2013-2014 school year, noting that construction is not yet underway.
The new space is nearly quadruple the size of HPU’s downtown bookstore at 1132 Fort Street Mall. HPU also has bookstores at its Hawaii Loa Campus and at Oahu military bases for its Military Campus Programs. Barnes & Noble College will run all of HPU’s bookstores starting Aug. 1.
Barnes & Noble College operates more than 700 campus bookstores around the nation. Its deal with HPU will represent the division’s entry into Hawaii, though its regular retail stores have been in the islands for years.
Barnes & Noble has two stores on Oahu, at Kahala Mall and Ala Moana Center. The Kahala Mall store will be replaced with a Ross Dress for Less.
Staff changes are likely to be kept to a minimum at the HPU bookstores, according to Judith Buckingham, senior corporate marketing specialist for Barnes & Noble College. "We always try to keep the store employees," she said.
The huge purchasing power of a national chain was one factor in HPU deciding to outsource its bookstore operations, Simmons said, and Barnes & Noble College was one of many respondents to the bidding process.
"The bookstore marketplace is a very fluid and dynamic place right now, even in the college marketplace … so it makes really good sense to bring in a big, experienced outlet like Barnes & Noble to come in and assist us and help us improve what we’re able to provide students, faculty and others," Simmons said.
Services will include not only outright purchase of new or used textbooks, but book rentals with options to buy them at the end of the rental period, as well as purchase of digital books.
"From all of our discussions, the pricing for books and course materials will be roughly the same that it is now …but there certainly will be more available to them," Simmons said.
To prepare for the start of the contract, HPU’s bookstores are staging a 50-percent-off sale, which not only will help clear inventory for the transition, but will make room for new HPU-branded merchandise with the new university logo and brand marks, Simmons said.
"They’ve got to prepare for that as we’re sunsetting the old merchandise," he said.
While building and opening the Aloha Tower Marketplace bookstore will be priority one, the Barnes & Noble transition team also will review all HPU bookstore operations when it begins its work.
Sew stoked
The U.S. division of Swiss-founded sewing machine maker Bernina has selected the owner of three Oahu stores for two annual awards.
Razzak Ebrahim, who owns California Sewing & Vac in San Jose, Calif., as well as the three Oahu locations of US Sewing & Vacuum, was named among the top five multistore dealers for highest sales dollar volume. Ebrahim also was named one of 11 District Dealers of the Year for the California store at Bernina’s recent training conference in San Francisco.
Ebrahim’s Oahu stores are at 670 Auahi St,, 320 Ward Ave. and 719 Kamehameha Highway in Pearl City.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
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