Barnes & Noble To Be Replaced By Yet More Tech Companies. Latest Casualty of High Rents

The Barnes and Noble on Third and Wilshire is closing, reports several sources. In January 2017, it will be replaced by four tenants, one on each floor of the historic building that used to house a department store. Barnes and Noble has been in that location for 20 years.

"Those who have stumbled upon the news that we will be starting 2018 without our Barnes and Noble at Wilshire and 3rd are very distressed. There are no signs and little buzz about this. The rent is going up and a tech company moving in, an employee said.

STILL COULDN'T ANOTHER LOCATION BE FOUND???? We have scads of existing hotels and more in the hopper just between Ocean and 7thish. Can't the residents at least have a bookstore that sells books, music, newspapers and magazines?? Bookstores are on the upswing- and we shouldn't have to lose ours," wrote Mary Kay in an e mail.

After a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the American bookstore industry since the 1990s, Barnes & Noble stands alone as the United States' largest national bookstore chain.

Barnes & Noble, Inc., is a Fortune 500 company, the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States, and a retailer of content, digital media, and educational products. As of October 15, 2017, the company operates 778 retail stores in all 50 States.