Barnes & Noble has officially reopened in Cheyenne!
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| Barnes & Noble's new store front on Grand Opening morning - Optopolis |
After over a year of Cheyenne being without Barnes & Noble, the store has finally reopened! Here's further detail into the process of the store finally opening again.
The initial history
Barnes & Noble Cheyenne originally was located on Dell Range Blvd just west of Red Lobster, and that is where B&N was located since the building was built (1995 according to the property assessor).
Fast forward to 2007, a new plaza would be built, sometimes called either Frontier Plaza (according to the property assessor) or Cheyenne Marketplace (as seen on a lease sign seen in 2011). Within the building on the south end of the plaza, Natural Grocers would soon open in a previously unoccupied space.
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| TOP: Old Barnes & Noble location | BOTTOM: Old Natural Grocers location - Optopolis |
Back in June 2021, an "Engineering Plan Review" project item would be added to the Cheyenne city planning website; however, this plan (referred to as "Barnes and Noble New Truck Access") only involved building a new truck access/loading dock in the back of the building.
Barnes & Noble announces plans of relocating
Around the end of March 2022, things took a twist as Barnes & Noble announced they would be closing to relocate, noting that the owner of the old location opted out of renewing their lease. Here at Optopolis, it was discovered that Natural Grocers was planning to soon relocate to the Barnes & Noble building; not long after the old B&N store began to close, Barnes & Noble announced plans to relocate temporarily to the Frontier Mall until such time that they could reopen in a permanent home.
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| Former All Wild Western/DEB, Nature's Touch/Asian Gift, coming soon signage posted - Optopolis |
Not too much time after closing for the final day, permits were submitted for remodeling both the DEB/All Wild Western space and the Nature's Touch/Asian Gift space in the mall for the temporary Barnes & Noble store. Unfortunately, plans for the temporary location would fall through; before the end of the year, the coming soon signs were taken down from the former DEB space.
Natural Grocers begins the process of relocating.
Around the same time frame that Barnes & Noble was looking at the Frontier Mall location, Natural Grocers had already submitted permits for the new Natural Grocers location. Fairly quickly after Barnes & Noble was out of their old location, construction had already begun on the new Natural Grocers.
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| Natural Grocers construction begins. Includes work on the loading dock. - Optopolis |
In September, Natural Grocers would be actively preparing to move to the new location; they would open for the first time and have their grand opening on September 23rd, 2022. Before year end, the old Natural Grocers location had been totally emptied out of Natural Grocers' fixtures, including the bike racks and seating out front of the store; a large dumpster had even been placed in the parking lot.
Barnes & Noble announces new plans for a different Cheyenne location
What happened next on Barnes & Noble's side of the road is something that you just don't see happen too often around here when it comes to retailers relocating to new spaces. Barnes & Noble announced that it would work to reopen in the old Natural Grocers space-yes, the Natural Grocers that previously relocated to the old Barnes & Noble location.
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| Coming soon banners for Barnes & Noble posted in the former Natural Grocers space - Optopolis |
In 2023, permits would be submitted to remodel the space. By this point in the game, the reopening date of Barnes & Noble had already been shifted several times and would continue to see shifting while they waited for the permits to be approved. Unfortunately, all these delays had resulted in some locals questioning whether Barnes & Noble would ever come back.
Banners posters seen in the windows during the construction process at the new B&N space even referenced previous plans to open in summer 2023 even though that didn't end up happening! Fortunately, it was actually coming back for real this time.
Barnes & Noble finally settled on plans to have their grand opening in late October-more specifically, October 25th, 2023. After several weeks of construction and also hauling books and fixtures into the store, the store was mostly readied up just a few days before the 25th, at which point they'd have a soft opening.
Barnes & Noble has the grand opening of the new store
In the morning of October 25th, Barnes & Noble would host a ribbon cutting ceremony where not only would the opening of the store be commemorated but also the tenth year of store manager, Colt Johnson. As could be seen in the recent video posted on the Optopolis YouTube channel, the store had quite the turnout of people on scene!
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| Crowd gathers in front of Barnes & Noble's new store prior to the store opening - Optopolis |
Author Stephen Graham Jones would cut the ribbon, at which point, the general public was invited into the store. When initially walking into the store, one could hear a visitor say, "It's about time!" to which the crowd laughed; someone else responded, "Tell me about it!" People continued to make their way inside of the store.
Not long after opening to the public for the day, a line began to form at the checkout area. At a certain point, the line was so long that it stretched from the cash registers in the front left corner of the store to near the back right corner of the store, weaving around many of the various book shelves.
Features of the new Barnes & Noble store
Although the new store is smaller, many aspects of the previous store did make it into the new store. Most of the major sections (i.e. fiction, history, travel, kids, etc.) made it into the new location. They also had sections that may not have been significantly found in a B&N before such as a vinyl section and a section just for gift cards, gift wrapping paper, and other related products.
Many B&N regulars likely remember that the old store had a cafe. Unfortunately, due to the new store being so small, the new Cheyenne store opted out of having a cafe; however, they do still have some seating throughout the store for visitors to use, and for now, visitors are allowed to bring snacks or beverages in the store.
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