The area of downtown Towson that is now home to Trader Joe’s and Barnes & Noble is about to go through a major overhaul. It had already been announced that TJ’s was moving to The Shops at Kenilworth, but Barnes & Noble had said it was staying put and moving from two levels to just one expanded first-floor location.
But now employees of the Towson bookstore say the landlord has told them they need to move out. Barnes & Noble wants to maintain a presence in Towson, they said, but the news came as a surprise and so far no new storefront has been secured.
The building is owned by Retail Properties of America, which earlier this month won approval from the Baltimore County Design Review Panel to renovate the exterior of the property. Here is the rendering they submitted:
“Circle East” rendering
The land that is now a parking lot for Trader Joe’s and Barnes & Noble is being turned into 371 apartments and 75,000 square feet of retail space in partnership with developer AvalonBay.
Rendering of Towson Circle on Joppa at York
Employees at Barnes & Noble said the store is scheduled to close in June. Trader Joe’s has said it will close its doors on March 16 and re-open at Kenilworth the next day.
–Kris Henry
Towson is turning from a n engagiing home town into a small city…Not good….Apartments are not needed in Towson,……especially since they are so architecturaly incongruent…At the least, developers should create a statement….an art form..but they are not…Towson now just looks like an incongruent mess! Very very sad.
The traffic should be even more amusing than it is already.
Well “progress” comes at a price in Towson lately—Barnes & Noble, Ukazoo Books, and at Kenilworth Mall: Su Casa and Fell’s Point Surf Shop. In all cases, these beloved businesses did not want to leave, according to numerous employees, but were forced out by the new landlords, possibly short-sighted real estate developers who are dropping/foregoing known clientele. Many of these stores have also offered a hip or local flavor, a zeitgeist Towson desperately needs.
As new residents move into the apartment buildings downtown, we hope Barnes & Noble can find a new home, as Ukazoo did, though sadly that fave is no longer in walking distance. Bad commercial karma can only go so far…
Fells point surf shop and su casa are owned by the same company, su casa has a store in Ellicott city and when the flooding happened the company decided to close their stores at the shops at Kenilworth to save money for for rebuilding thw Ellicott city store
Kenilworth Mall owners also tripled the rent, including for Su Casa and Fell’s Point Surf Shop, according to employees at both stores.
(On the upside, the Christmas-time train garden is apparently returning, train designers there said).