Comments

1
Welcome to the Two-Block Radius, Elliott Bay Books.
2
Good job, Paul (and thank you for the official word, Peter). Now watch the internet debate begin in earnest!
3
Well, I really hope this is a good move for Elliott Bay and that the store survives, but this is really bad news for the Pioneer Square area. Just another nail in a coffin that has been steadily hammered for the last 20 years.
4
Well, I'll never shop there. Not that I'm boycotting or anything, just that I'll do almost anything to avoid Capitol Hill, while Pioneer Square is part of my regular routine. It has character, door by door. Cap Hill used to, I guess.
5
So you'll go see authors and buy books at... Cowgirls, Inc., Fnarf?
6
Interesting that they're moving in on Bailey/Coy territory, after B/C so recently closed. Hopefully they have better luck...
7
How many bike stalls are there?

Looking forward to getting there on light rail.
8
Well I can't say I support this. I probably won't be frequenting EBBC anymore. Barnes and Noble at Pacific Place is closer walking distance-wise and cheaper. Literally, the only thing that was special about shopping at EBBC was the location- the act of stepping into the past; into an old building where books and ideas seemed to grow out of the brick and wood. Just another quaint Capitol Hill bookstore? Meh. As much as I love the quirky indie-business-inside-an-old-auto-warehouse aesthetic, it just doesn't have the same presence as the Pioneer Square location. I don't blame EBBC for their woes (although I'm sure a creative business person could come up with alternative streams of revenue). I really blame the city for neglecting Pioneer Square by sacrificing history for surface parking and by seemingly concentrating all regional homeless services in one place.

This whole thing smacks of Seattle disappointment: so much potential, such horrifying city planning.

9
No, Wessel & Lieberman, and Newberry, are more my style anyways. I don't think Cowgirls is very interesting until way past my bedtime, like ten o'clock, when the frat boys start fighting and the sorority girls start puking.
10
How many were upset with REI when they moved out of the space that is now Value Village?
11
This is good for Capitol Hill. Not that I live there anymore, sadly. But it doesn't ease the sting of losing Bailey/Coy, the only bookstore I ever bought new non-textbooks at.
12
@10, I was. Their new store annoys the crap out of me.
13
@8: Just another quaint Capitol Hill bookstore? Another?
14
Screw them. Good luck up on the hill. If they really wanted to go somewhere and make money it should have been Queen Anne. Hipsters don't read books, they save up for fixies. Sour grapes? You betcha.
15
This is awesome. I am so happy about this. I love the place but it is so out of the way at the edge of Pioneer Square. I look forward to stumbling out of the nearby bars and go drunken book shopping.
16
Yes, this is bad news for Pioneer Square. Really, the fault lies with the city and parter PS organizations and their inability to breathe life into the area. Now this. Everytime I walk through there, my urbanist heart breaks just a little at the unfulfilled potential. For the record, I think the bookstore has also just sealed their fate - while they're a great store, 90% of their charm was that space.
17
This is better news than it closing, but sad all the same. I hope Capitol Hill residents can support it, as they will now be its only customers.
18
1)Finally, some good book news.
2)uh, why write off the new store before it even opens? Lame.
3)The new building IS pretty funky.
4)The location is great. Pike/Pine is really starting to gell as it's own neigborhood despite all the irritating new overpriced restaurants.
5)yes Paul, you've done some good reporting on this, but Capitol HIll Blog has also done a great job of covering this story.
19
I for one am happy about this. I found myself shopping there a lot less over the years because I didn't like the Pioneer Square area for all those reasons they sited above (parking, conflict with sporting events, the declining neighborhood, etc.). I don't live on the hill but I find myself there much more often than Pioneer Square (EBBS was my only intentional destination). I hope this will open up a whole bunch of new opportunities for them.
20
It's funny how experience determines attitudes.

Cale at #8 decries how Pioneer Square celebrates surface parking over history.

Meanwhile, it is my experience that I probably shopped at EBBC LESS because I found getting to Pioneer Square and finding convenient parking nearly impossible...and that was true of Bailey/Coy as well (especially within the past couple of years)...so, hearing that the Capitol Hill version of EBBC will have available parking (even if it is underground) is a huge plus for me and makes it more likely that I'll go there more regularly.

I'm not saying that the world has to cater to me and what I want. There are many wonderful little neighborhood shops and cafes that I will never experience because I don't live in those neighborhoods--but, as long as they have enough customers they can pull from their local area...good for them!

But, if a business has to pull in business from other neighborhoods to survive...then it has to appreciate that every consumer they're hoping to draw in ends up playing a "convenience versus opportunity" game...if it is inconvenient for me to get to where you are then you've got to have something that I really want and can't duplicate elsewhere, more conveniently.

Cale will go to B&N in Pacific Place because that is more convenient and the opportunity that EBBC offers isn't big enough to sway Cale. Meanwhile, knowing that if I feel like browsing an excellent bookstore...I don't have to sweat the parking to get me there makes EBBC on Capitol Hill a more favorable option for me.

The hope, for EBBC's success on Capitol Hill, is to get the attention of enough people like me to make up for the people like Cale. I wish them well...
21
This news, though not unexpected, still makes me want to throw up.
22
I live within blocks and I have spent literally thousands of dollars at Elliott Bay in the past, but I won't be shopping there. 85 parking spaces is absolutely ridiculous in the Pike/Pine neighborhood. They effectively killed the walkability and bikeability of the center of Pike/Pine.

The traffic caused by free retail parking spots can be equivalent to 20x the traffic of reserved paid spots on busy nights and weekends. Assuming all 85 spaces are free for customers, that can be the equivalent traffic of a 1700 space condo parking lot.

Pedestrians and bicyclists will be hit and some will likely die because of Elliott Bay's selfish decision to change the landscape of Pike/Pine to a suburban mallscape.

They should have moved to a mall or a car-centric low-density neighborhood. Even Powell's in Portland, which is thriving, many times the size, and takes up an entire city block, only has 40 parking spaces.

Join me in boycotting Elliott Bay books until they remove their giant parking lot in the middle of Seattle's densest neighborhood, or they go out of business.
23
And now I will shop there.
24
There goes another diversion on my route home from work.
25
I'm glad they're moving a bookstore to a place where people actually read.

EBBC used to be a giant urinal that also sold books, but now it's going to be a place for hipsters to load up on books in between catastrophically failed relationships. Oh, and normal people can buy books, too.
26
this is horrible horrible news. i'm a regular customer at the pioneer square location and i know a lot of people in the neighborhood will be sad to hear this.
27
@17 uh, that makes no sense...the new location is about the same distance away from downtown (Westlake Center) as the old location. Tens of thousands of people live on Capitol Hill (far more than live in Pioneer Square). Tens of thousands of people VISIT Capitol Hill to go to restaurants, clubs, other stores, galleries, theaters and cinemas, (Pioneer Square has art galleries but no other cultural attractions like films or theater). The new location is blocks away from Seattle Central and Seattle University. (There are no schools in Pioneer Square). And as I've said in previous posts, the only people who visit Pioneer Square are tourists, the homeless, party people going to the trashy clubs and people en route to the stadiums who probably don't stop to buy many books coming/going from games. Moving to Capitol Hill is the smartest thing Elliot Bay can do to survive and prosper.
28
No Fnarf? I'm sold on the move. I sure hope they keep their used book section. After Epilogue closed it's gotten harder for me to find good used books.
29
Wait wait wait wait wait-- almost 90 parking spaces. On Cap Hill? Next to the new Link station? And Streetcar?

Hey, knock it the fuck off, EBBC.
30
Yea! Right next to Basic Plumbing. One stop shopping.
31
I'd be more likely to go to Capitol Hill than to Pioneer Square, especially if there's parking there. The Pioneer Square space was charming, but other spaces can be charming too and it sounds like they're determined to make it work.

Yes, I too am among those who liked REI's old space better than the new. I remember when REI was all about getting good gear into their member's hands for not a whole lot of money. They still have some good gear, but now it's at top dollar and mixed in with city clothes. The new store is more of a palace than an outdoor enthusiast's store.
32
The Pike/Pine area is my first stop for restaurants / meeting up with friends, so I am totally excited to see Elliot Bay Book Co moving there. I can imagine that I will shop there a lot more than I do now.

In the past few years, I've gone out for food / drinks with authors who were reading at Elliot Bay (and also other bookstores, like University Bookstore), and Capitol Hill--especially the Pike / Pine, area was almost always the destination. As much as I like Pioneer Square, at night at least, it doesn't seem to ever rank as a first choice on the list of anyone I know.

The vibe of the current store in Pioneer Square is great (and I know authors who love it, too) -- and I am sure everyone is expecting that of the new store. If that somehow is absent, then that might be a problem. But, otherwise, I think it's going to be great.
33
Poor Pioneer Square. Guess I will now do all my book buying at B&N in Pacific Place. Don't think EBBS will do that much better on the Hill, but now they can't blame the lack of parking. Wonder if they are going to be seen as victims of the recession or just rats deserting a sinking ship? Offhand, I think rats.....
34
Wow. Something actually moving on the hill, instead of off. Meh. Probably gonna go out of business in a year.
35
I'm kinda with Fnarf - I avoided Capitol Hill when I lived in Seattle and found it much easier to go to Pioneer Square. But if I were still in town I'd follow them up the hill. Deciding to stick with B&N for the convenience is like deciding to go with McDonald's if Dick's or Burgermaster or Red Mill closed.
36
1)Barnes and Noble has shitty selection and shitty prices...why the fuck would anyone shop there?
2)Don't get why the parking situation is causing some people to come unglued...there's no NEW parking lots being built for this...they're using the existing space in the building they are renting and in the lot they are leasing, which I'm guessing is the one around the corner on Broadway next to Blockbuster video...big deal. Move on.
37
@27 - I admire your local boosterism, but consider this:

Pioneer square is downtown, where tens of thousands of people go to work, every day. They have no choice. The current location is an easy walk (i.e., not 10 blocks uphill) at lunch or after work for anyone who works downtown.

Do you work downtown? When was the last time you went to the Hill for lunch? Sure, people who don't live there might go to a specific bar or restaurant in the evening, but do you really think they'll take a stroll down 10th after?

West Seattle, too, has a lot of amenities that I can list - great restaurants, a huge school (SSCC), etc., etc.. But if you don't live there, why go? Like Capitol Hill, it's on no one's way home.
38
Oh man, I am going to shop the fuck outta that there bookstore.

To the folks bitching and talking boycott: Look, this store was faced with a choice: It could either (a) stay in its current location, continue to hemorrhage money, and CLOSE DOWN; or (b) move to a location that might stand a decent chance of attracting large numbers of actual BUYERS OF BOOKS, as opposed to the hordes of tourist looky-lous, confused/illiterate Sounders fans, and assholes copying down the staff recommendations so that they could order them more cheaply on Amazon.com. The latter group, by all accounts, constitutes the majority of the clientele that EBBC has for years been attracting in Pioneer Square.

To the people who are whining that Capitol Hill is not as convenient: OK, so now you're gonna be faced with a choice: Go a couple fucking miles out of your way and continue to support a really great independent bookstore (which will be newly situated near three colleges, about forty coffee shops, a library branch, a good range of restaurants, and multiple awesome parks), or just *lose that independent store entirely* and go scratch your indie-bookstore itch at one of Seattle's other indie bookstores, which, oops, only carries experimental poetry, or antiquarian postcard collections, or used science fiction, because it is a NICHE MOTHERFUCKING BOOKSTORE. God. I know change is scary, but y'all need to get it through your heads: this is actually good news.
39
Independent bookstores only survive if people shop in them. I wish Elliott Bay Books well, and hope lots of folks will support them.

I just don't get you anti-parking 'new urbanite' folks. We're not all able to bike or walk everyplace, and there ought to be options for everyone to have access to places like the new EB Books. I for one am glad they will have parking for customers. That doesn't make them derisively suburban, just more accessible to a wider demographic, which increases their chance of surviving. Pretty smart.
40
I think if they need to move to survive then so be it. As a very eager and frequent EB book buyer, I'd rather see them do what they need to do to stay open rather than losing them forever. It was sad enough losing Bailey Coy, another one of my favorite places to be.

I'm also happy to see them move into the neighborhood. I've lived in the hood for 7 years and although quite different, I am glad to see new and old businesses popping up and doing their thing.
41
I love the people who are all "Fuck this! A beloved independent bookstore has to move to survive! I'm going to shop at Barnes & Noble instead!"

What the fuck?
42
"In addition the new space will offer something we’ve never been able to offer before—wheelchair access to all levels." Wahooo!! For those of us who have been shut out of readings at EBBS for years, this is great news!
43
Thank you, 38. That expresses my reaction exactly. Although, I am honestly going to miss that building. It's surprising how much.

.
44
#39: There are options. Third Place Books is a great independent book store that has parking lots at its two locations. BUT, they are located in low-density, car-centric neighborhoods - NOT in the middle of the densest neighborhood in the state. NOT within blocks of hundreds of people walking and biking out of bars, restaurants, and clubs every night. NOT at the intersection of 4 very busy bus-lines, a new streetcar, and a new light rail station.

Elliott Bay Book Company could have taken advantage of tourists and suburban shoppers at ANY car-centric neighborhood from Northgate to University Village to Georgetown to Magnolia. Instead, they chose the densest neighborhood hoping they could attract urban-minded neighborhood folks along with the tourists, even though they are doing incredible damage to the neighborhood by opening the most retail parking spots we've seen in many years (decades?). They are wrong.

#36: Those 85 parking spaces existed before but almost all of them were reserved - not open for shoppers making quick trips. There is very little traffic coming in and out of the new condo buildings for that reason - there is TONS of traffic coming out of the Safeway on 14th/John. Free retail parking lots destroy walkable neighborhoods.
45
Is this a good time to bring up that awesome, yet unsatisfactorily-resolved set of Dear Science posts on bookstore browsing and excretory urges? The existing EBBS is my "high-water" mark for that mysterious, and mysteriously widespread phenomenon.
46
OK, Barnes and Noble was an exaggeration. The experience is obviously nothing like a good independent bookstore. And of course, if most people want a good selection of books for a good price, they go to Amazon. However, if we think about the experience of B&N or Amazon and compare it to the independent bookstore, the reasons why indies are special are illuminated.

The real issue is that the business of most people going to a larger, non-specialized independent book store for the sole purpose of buying a book is gone. It is totally understandable since if somebody wants a book, they have cheaper options. However, places like EBBC have much to offer which keep people coming back like community, charm and history. The charm is unproven and the history has been reset. If EBBC can somehow manage to keep up the community aspect, they can probably adopt a new history and charm. However, EBBC is dead as we know it, and it is up to either the city to reconstitute its cultural relevance, or up to some brilliant management we have yet to see.
47
#8 The fuck? "although I'm sure a creative business person could come up with alternative streams of revenue..." that's the most ostrich-head-in-sand thing i've heard in a really long time. you must be working in some recession-proof field like banking, no wait, education, no wait, real estate, no wait... i'd say moving to a part of town that has way more foot traffic (not to mention, amazingly, parking) might be the best business move they could make right now. and on top of that you're going to make arguments based on a place's aesthetics (somehow this will be worse than the Pioneer Square location apparently) and then say you're going to go buy books at Barnes and Noble in the mall?
48
#47, last time I checked the businesses that survive are the ones that evolve and try new things. They react to competition by offering unique or superior services. EBBC has not changed hardly at all. That's why they are getting pushed under the waves. Yes this move could be a good thing, but I really doubt it was the only thing they could have done.
49
HUZZAH! sez I, Huzzah! And welcome to the neighborhood, Elliott Bay! I, for one, will be buying a LOT more books now!
50
I LOVE EB, and I have struggled with the location for years. The building, while charming, isn't the reason I went - I went because the store is large, it has used and new books, it has a GREAT selection, and most importantly, it is run by people who fucking like to read. It's run by people who fucking love to read. Now it won't have to just be a destination for me, it can be someplace I pop into when I have 30 free minutes in my day.

I hesitate to say anything that would encourage troll-like behavior, but Boycott? You're strenuously objecting and trying to rally the masses to boycott an independent company making the best business decision they could to survive, and you're doing it on THE STRANGER? Get the fuck outta here! Go wave a sign on the street corner to object, you asshat. I'll wave back from the window of my new favorite place to chill on the Hill.
51
Go ther and spend lots of money. Then spend some more.
52
Free Lunch, my friend, you are Out to Lunch.
I live on the Hill and I have worked Downtown...well, not really DT but at Union Station which is actually closer to Elliot Bay than your odd definition of Downtown, which I'm guessing you really mean the Civic Center and not Westlake which IS pretty much the same distance from Pioneer Square as it is from the new location on the Hill...and where exactly in Seattle can you walk very far without encountering a hill or at least an incline, and who really lets that keep them from doing things they want to do? Also, there's something called a bus.

And since when is Capitol Hill some obscure fringe neighborhood that no one visits or apparently lives on? It's adjacent to downtown and the largest, densest neighborhood in the city. I think plenty of people can and will find it. I'm guessing that thousands of Capitol Hill residents have been shopping at Elliot Bay for years...we managed to make it all the way down the Hill and back without too much wear and tear...you might give it a try.
53
hmmm...how is putting a bookstore in the suburbs going to help with traffic or reduce carbon footprint? For the quarter million people who live in the City Center that would mean we would have to FUCKING DRIVE OR TAKE A BUS to go buy books.

I'd rather walk, thanks.
54
It's not that hard to park near the current EBBC. I have never not found spot in the garage on the west side of 1st Ave near Columbia, for example. Similar for Cap Hill. Next time you drive to the Hill, time how long it takes you to find a spot. Even it it's one of those times where your think it's forever, it will be like five minutes, max. It's like waiting in line at a bank, it feels way longer than it is. (Does anyone go inside a bank anymore?)
55
Welcome to the neighborhood, EBBC. I am happy to have you in the mix!
56
@52: The densest neighborhood is Belltown, actually.

But that doesn't matter since Mark Baerwaldt doesn't read.
57
The only people that care about this move are leotards that diddled away 8 years of their lives working at the book store and who were then given a podium at a washed up weekly where they could publicly cry about it. Booooooring. I hear a fog horn. Booooooring.
58
Having worked at EBBCo, I have mixed feelings about the move, but I think that Aaron's letter makes very strong points (unlike so many of the weird comments here that seem tantamount to declaring a boycott). I think that @50 has it about right in terms of what EBBCo offers that, say, a Barnes and Noble doesn't. It's knowledgeability, which is not the same as mere information or data, something that can be found by using Google or another search engine. Do you have a vague idea of what the book cover looks like, think that the book is about the environment, and has something to do with the Earth turning? Well, that sort of question could be (and has been--I was there) answered at EBBCo. The collective knowledge of the staff at EBBCo is what makes it distinct from any online book service that is reliant upon search engine technology and algorithms for determining which book you might like based on what others have looked at. Likewise, a recommendation from an EBBCo staff member has the potential to be more meaningful for the customer because of the staff member's knowledge and willingness to think about the customer's stated interests--to think, not to process data. The full price you pay for the book at EBBCo could, I suppose, be seen as the price that you pay for the potential to make use of this knowledge. At least, that's my thought, although I'm sure that someone out there will complain that I have no understanding of economics, consumer behavior, or of the bottom line.
59
@ 58, as a veteran book store employee myself (Denver's Tattered Cover), there's one unfortunate development that makes the "knowledgeability" (great word coinage BTW) a double-edged sword - the fact that customers can take advantage of that knowledge to discover the book they're looking for, then order that book from Amazon anyway since they have that nice discount.

I don't know if this is a problem for Elliott Bay, whose on-hand selection kicks Tattered Cover's ass for sure these days, but my old connections at TC say this is pretty frequent.
60
Yes, you are correct...technically Belltown is denser but it's also a much smaller neighborhood. Capitol Hill has about 60,000 residents to Belltown's 12,000...and parts of Capitol Hill are far denser than Belltown.
61
There are also 11,000 people living in downtown neighborhoods that actually surround Elliott Bay (unlike Belltown): the ID, the commercial core, and Pioneer Square itself.

More importantly, there are HUNDREDS of thousands of daily workers there, unlike Capitol Hill, which is probably has more beds than jobs (dunno the figures though).

You can argue all you want about hills, but I'm quite certain that Elliott Bay is aware that zero percent of their business in the new location is going to come from people walking up them from downtown. It's just not going to happen.
62
Oh, and according to the city, Capitol Hill only has 19,075 people in it, not 60,000 (as of 2000). Downtown has more, if you include Belltown.

http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Research/Popu…
63
@59: Indeed! The whole "free rider" problem is something to take into consideration. I doubt it could be countered effectively unless people who visited the bookstore were compelled by force to buy the book they ask about, or otherwise to pay a fee just to visit or to consult the employees. But this sort of thing seems impractical, to say the least.
64
@59, even worse are the folks who walk through bookstores with their Kindle, and order it up right on the spot when they see something they like.
65
Yes, FNARF and did you look at their definition of Capitol Hill? The "official" boundaries of the neighborhood are far smaller than the actual boundaries...I live on top of the Hill yet according to the city's definition I don't live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood but the building across the street from me IS officially Capitol Hill...

Anyone too lazy, obstinate or stupid to go to the biggest, best indie bookstore in the city just because it's moving to a location that it's determined is better for their financial health shouldn't be allowed to enter the new store.
66
On a side-note, Everyday Music (independently-owned from Portland, OR and non-corporate) will be moving into the old Ford building in late January so there will be two shops selling dead formats side-by-side.

Welcome to Cap Hill EBBC!!
67
Oh man, @65, you argue about the boundaries of downtown, but Capitol Hill's don't apply? I always feel bad how Fnarf abuses you, but it's hard to blame him - you really do provide a lot of openings.

You now have a neighborhood bookstore, pure and simple. Will people outside of that neighborhood go there? Sure, because it's a great one. But the percentage of them that work downtown, but stop by due to its new, convenient location? That percentage will start with a decimal point.

(Oh - and by "downtown" I mean where all the high-rises are clustered, not where the mall is. People who work at "Hot Dog on a Stick" aren't paying retail for books.)
68
Seriously, it's not EBBS' fault they're moving. The owner of the building decided she wanted to chop the space up for four storefronts and wouldn't renew their lease. Don't give them crap for having a bad landlord.

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