Barnes & Noble to open largest Chicago store, after other 'successful' openings

Barnes & Noble is set to open four Chicago area stores in the first half of the year, including its largest Chicago location in the Loop.

The company confirmed plans to open a 30,000-square-foot flagship location at 150 N. State St. in June. The space was last home to Old Navy, before it closed in 2023.

“The Chicago market is a very important one for us, and we're really happy to be opening in the Loop and to open a store of this size,” said Janine Flanigan, vice president of store design for Barnes & Noble.

The bookseller's national expansion plans have been booming — 2025 saw 58 locations open and 60 stores are planned this year.

In 2024, the company opened a store in Wicker Park at the historic Noel State Bank building and a Lincoln Park store at Clark Street and Diversey Parkway.

“[Both locations] have been hugely successful,” Flanigan said. “We've gotten so many customer compliments and so much activity in both of those locations.”

Other store openings planned include Hyde Park, at 1524 E. 55th St., and a relocation at the Westfield Old Orchard mall in Skokie. Both are scheduled to open at the end of February, the company said.

An Oak Park store is also opening in May at 1144 Lake St., the former Marshall Field & Co. building.

The Loop location is still in the early stages of design and development, and it may open in multiple phases, Flanigan said.

The three-floor store will also include a cafe, which will likely not be part of the initial opening phase.

Barnes & Noble, the largest retail bookseller in the country, experienced over a decade of store closures, before the emergence of TikTok's “BookTok” trend and a change in company leadership, both of which helped drive its expansion plans.

In 2023, the company launched more new bookstores in a single year than it had from 2009 to 2019.

“Before, stores were very corporate driven,” she said. “They looked the same. There were paid spots for books and they didn’t necessarily relate to each other.”

But now, stores choose which books to feature, making each store unique, she said.