Tucson's north-side Borders bookstore is one of about 200 that will close nationwide as part of the company's bankruptcy reorganization.
Borders announced Wednesday that it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will close nearly a third of its stores by the beginning of the April.
Among those on the chopping block: the 26,000-square-foot store at 4235 N. Oracle Road that opened in 1995, one of Borders' two Tucson locations.
The Borders at Park Place, 5870 E. Broadway, will keep doing business, as will the bookseller's online store, Borders.com
Borders will close seven of its 11 Phoenix-area locations.
The reorganization will cost about 6,000 of the company's 19,500 employees nationwide their jobs. The closures are also a blow to publishers already owed tens of millions of dollars by the company, which stopped paying them in December.
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Clearance sales could begin as early as this weekend, according to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. The company will continue to honor its gift cards and loyalty program.
Borders said it is losing about $2 million a day at the stores it plans to close, all of them superstores. The company also operates smaller Waldenbooks and Borders Express stores.
Fifteen years ago, Borders superstores dotted the U.S. and seemed to be the future of bookselling. Its sprawling stores, comfortable chairs, cafes and widespread discounts epitomized the "bigger is better" retail philosophy that spelled the end of many mom-and-pop bookstores that couldn't compete on selection or price.
Americans today are more likely to pick up the latest best-seller anywhere from Costco to Amazon.com, or download a digital version, than make an extra trip to a strip mall.
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When Tucson's Borders on North Oracle Road opened in 1995 it boasted some 100,000 book titles, about half the size of Tucson's Main Library at that time.
Not long after the book superstore arrived in Tucson, it was blamed, either directly or indirectly, for the closure of several independently owned bookstores.
The American Booksellers Association blamed Borders and Barnes & Noble for helping to put The Haunted Bookshop at Tohono Chul Park out of business in 1997, among others.
The Book Mark, Tucson's last general-interest, non-specialty bookstore, closed in 1999 amid similar complaints from loyal customers. "We're the last of the dinosaurs, I guess," Book Mark owner Brenda Spohn told the Star at the time.
Today, Borders is seen as the dinosaur by many analysts. Experts blame the company's financial woes on its belated reaction to the popularity of e-books and e-book readers, its failure to respond to declining music and DVD sales, and its slowness in establishing itself as an online bookseller.
Alex Dalenberg