In one sense, even the poorest among us won't leave empty-handed. The shopping center's recurring exhibitions and permanent art collection make NorthPark an indisputable landmark. If you didn't grow up running up and down the mall's slippery planters, are you even from Dallas?
Bibliophiles know, however, that something is missing: There's no bookstore inside NorthPark.
The closest thing is a library geared toward children on the complex's first floor, and we're too grown for Diary of a Wimpy Kid. What is especially bamboozling about the absence of a NorthPark bookstore is that at one time there were books to be had. A bookstore called Doubleday was one of the first 10 tenants to occupy the mall when it opened in 1965.
In July 1984, the Rizzoli bookstore chain opened up a NorthPark location, in a high-profile launch that directly followed the unveiling of a Rizzoli store on Broadway. That chronology truly underscores NorthPark’s lofty status as a shopping mecca in the mid-1980s.
More importantly, Rizzoli and Doubleday's existing simultaneously in one shopping center (no matter how large) reflects an era when bookstores were plentiful. That ubiquity was a boon to the local community.
“Bookstores serve as an important gathering place for the mind,” says Deep Vellum Publishing founder Will Evans. “We need many more and more bookstores …we still don’t have enough to reflect the diversity of Dallas. Every neighborhood should have one and reflect its community.”
The Early Bookworms
For one brief moment, Rizzoli and Doubleday helped NorthPark Center fulfill that exciting potential. But it didn't last. Doubleday Bookstore was bought by Barnes & Noble in 1990, a development signaling the chain’s demise. Rizzoli’s appears to have gone out of business around the same time, though a lack of concrete archival material makes it difficult to know precisely when it shut its doors.For those yearning for books at NorthPark, some salvation arrived later in the decade. A Brentano’s bookstore opened in June 1996 to help fill the literary void. Unfortunately, the shop abruptly closed in January 2006, a move the owners attributed to an expired lease.
Also part of NorthPark's bookstore history is Taylor's, which had a cozy spot near high-profile shopping venues such as Dillard’s.
“Taylor’s was a very welcoming store, very inviting atmosphere, a very typical size for one of those stores at the time,” recalls Interabang Books owner Nancy Perot. She also remembers it having a “great environment, lots of tables with books laid face-up on top.” What caused its demise? “I’d imagine they ran into the Amazon problem," she says.
The "Amazon problem" is one of many issues facing bookstores in the 21st century. The 2006 closure of Brentano's is one example of what became a dark age for bookstores. Increased online competition and a global recession led to the closure of 8% of independent bookstores in 2009. Massive bookstore chain Borders began closing its locations in July 2011.
The very concept of a bookstore started to seem incongruous in the modern world, and North Texas was far from immune to this phenomenon. As late as April 2013, the popular A Real Bookstore in Fairview shut down after just a few years of operation. By August 2014, things had become so dire for bookstores that an article in The New Yorker asked "Are Bookstores Just a Waste of Space?"
With so many closures, it’s no wonder NorthPark didn’t race to replace Brentano’s.
“I don’t remember a bookstore being inside NorthPark Mall,” says Poets Bookshop owner Marco Cavazos. “Although, I’ve frequented the giant Half Price Books down the street for as long as I can remember living in Dallas.”
The example of the flagship Half Price Books store on Northwest Highway crystallizes how an early 2010s bookstore apocalypse wasn’t the only thing shattering the mall’s longstanding commitment to offering books.
NorthPark’s proximity to other bookstores has almost certainly contributed to this absence. Two major bookstores exist near this location. The largest Half-Price Books on the continent, for one, is just a stone’s throw from NorthPark. There, residents like Cavazos can spend a whole afternoon browsing through all kinds of new and used media.
There's also a Barnes & Noble on Northwest Highway, across the street from NorthPark. This store has existed since at least April 2007. Dallas patrons could’ve seen this addition as a “replacement” of sorts when Brentano’s shut its doors in 2006.
Even with these two bookstores nearby, though, a bookstore inside NorthPark Mall could still thrive on its own merits.
“There are lots of people who go to NorthPark who never go to the other neighborhoods in Dallas where there are other great bookstores,” Evans says. “So many people are here gathering, eating, drinking.”
Surrounding those Half Price Books and Barnes & Noble stores are other destinations where people are eating and drinking. If the nearby Cheesecake Factory and NorthPark’s Kona Grill can co-exist, a NorthPark bookstore can co-exist with Barnes & Noble.
A bookstore would also provide some welcome variety to NorthPark’s current shopping options, especially around holidays, when shopping sprees include a coat for Mom and a book for Grandpa. Plenty of stores exist for NorthPark visitors enamored with fashion, makeup and high-end consumer products, serving sleek aesthetics and a similar clientele. A cozier, quiet domicile for book lovers would ensure some variety. If NorthPark can make room for a store selling Tesla vehicles, surely there’s space to sell some literature.
Perhaps the greatest argument for NorthPark bringing back a bookstore is simply the explosion of bookstores in Dallas. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, it looked like physical spaces for purchasing literature were never returning. But in this decade, a slew of fresh bookstores have proven that prediction wrong. The most famous example of this is Barnes & Noble opening a store in the Watters Crossing shopping area in Allen. This popular retail destination has lacked a bookstore for over a decade since a Borders store shut its doors.
Even more exciting is the deluge of independent bookstores thriving across Dallas. This includes places where it was impossible to imagine bookstores thriving.
“Oak Cliff has long been considered a book desert, with inconsistent access to bookstores in many neighborhoods for decades,” Whose Books founder Claudia Vega says. “Now, however, we have five bookstores within a walkable mile, each with its own unique niche. We complement one another, and together we're making a significant impact.”
This mini-mecca of flourishing Bishop Arts bookstores paints a hopeful model for how a NorthPark bookstore could function with nearby competition.
Among those Bishop Arts bookstores is The Wild Detectives, which opened its doors in 2014, and romantic bookstore Blush, which opened in October of this year. What caused the floodgates to reopen on new bookstores?
Getting a Read on the Room
“We are so connected to technology that it’s becoming harder to feel human," says Cavazos, whose Poets Bookshop opened in January 2020. "Our phones, tablets, smart watches are extensions of our physical self. The trend back to books is part of an overall trend of people needing to disconnect from the digital reality. Our lives are so overwhelmed with technology that there’s a desire to touch something tangible. We want to be entertained and informed by books, magazines and things that we can physically hold that don’t need to be plugged in.”NorthPark Center, which didn't respond to our requests for comment, would be wise to follow this trend and give the people what they want. What would it take to make a new NorthPark bookstore work, though?
“If a NorthPark bookstore were to survive, the community would have to understand they’d need to buy their books there. Bookstores really do need their customers,” Perot says. “There’s an old ABA [American Bookseller's Association] slogan of, ‘See it here, buy it here.’”
Perot’s Interabang bookstore has a dedicated fanbase that could serve as a handy model for any potential new NorthPark literary destination.
“We do book signings, author events, I think last year we had around 250,” Perot says. “Our book clubs are really terrifically successful. We have several book clubs. Those develop a real community that [helps] make our bookstore a destination, not to mention our highly curated service.”
Those kinds of events and community groups inject a bookstore with a culture you can’t find just anywhere. A recurring sentiment from bookstore owners and managers is that any new bookstore, NorthPark-based or otherwise, must have deep ties to the community.
“The community needs to understand that it's a partnership,” Perot says. “Bookstores are fabulous … for them to exist, they need to be supported by the community.”
It’s a sentiment Vega echoes.
"Recognizing that many in our community considered themselves new to reading and had limited book ownership, we committed to making book ownership both accessible and sustainable,” Vega says.
Competition from lower-priced books on Amazon and other online retailers can pose a great challenge to local outfits like Whose Books. But when you form a deep bond with neighbors, even that seemingly unconquerable adversity can be overcome.
“Fortunately, we’ve found that many in our community are realizing that supporting local shops like ours helps sustain a vibrant community and an inclusive reading culture that benefits everyone,” Vega says.
There are endless benefits to any bookstore. These shops have persisted in history for countless reasons, and putting one of these vital meeting spots inside an extremely popular location like NorthPark Center seems like a natural choice.
“This is not just a mall,” Evans says about NorthPark. “It’s a true destination, it’s a clear community. Of course, it deserves a bookstore. Every mall should have a bookstore, every single retail strip should have a bookstore. They should have multiple bookstores. It’s about putting the literary heart in our everyday fabric of our lives.”
