 "Photo: Josh Shannon")
 "Photo: Natalie Carillo")
The University Bookstore will move to a new location on Main Street by 2011, officials announced last Wednesday.
University spokesman John Brennan said the university has purchased a building at 83 E. Main St., formally owned by the Christina School District, for $1.6 million. Scott Douglass, executive vice president and treasurer of the university, said the plan is to relocate the bookstore at Perkins Student Center to the newly acquired property, which will also include office space for university departments.
The first floor of the University Bookstore in Perkins, which sells mostly university memorabilia, is not expected to change. Douglass said the university is still deciding the future for the Perkins Student Center.
“It might become a major dining hall for the new buildings replacing Gilbert and Harrington in the next five to ten years” he said.
The other two major bookstores in Newark—Lieberman’s Bookstore and Delaware Book Exchange—are also located on Main Street.
Douglass said 30 to 40 years ago, most students lived between East Campus, West Campus and The Green, but today a large percentage of students live on Laird campus.
“If you look how far Laird is away from Perkins, it’s not an ideal location,” he said. “Having the bookstore in a more central location makes a lot of sense.”
Brennan said having the three bookstores on Main Street is a good way to serve the university community.
“It gives the university a presence on Main Street, and certainly Main Street is an important part of what the university is all about,” he said.
The university plans to keep the exterior look of the building the same, located across the street from Caffe Gelato, and that once held offices for the Christina School District.
“It’s a historical place on Main Street, so we want to keep a façade that has that kind of background,” Brennan said.
The building was built by Newark in 1884, for $10,000, as a school building for classes up to eighth grade, according to the book “Histories of Newark.”. The building began “college preparation” classes on the second floor of the building in the early 1890s, and became known as Newark’s first high school.
In the 1950s, it became the headquarters for the Newark Special School District through 1981. When the Christina School District was created in 1981, the building was used as the district headquarters until 2004.
Douglass said the building was orginally taken by eminent domain, private property taken for public purpose, reverting ownership from private property to the original owners.
The original owners had to be identified and Christina School District made an agreement so they could sell the property, Douglass said.
The Christina School Board voted to sell the unused building to the university as a way to raise money to complete construction of Porter Road Elementary in Bear.
In June 2009, the university purchased the 15,300 square foot property sitting on an acre of ground, Brennan said.
Junior Andrew Curtin said the move will force students living on East Campus to walk over to Main Street to buy books.
“It’ll probably be a little bit of an inconvenience for students on East Campus, but Main Street is pretty well-traveled so it seems like a decent choice for the university,” Curtin said.
Aimee Grady, a cashier at Delaware Book Exchange, said she heard about the potential move from her manager, but was not too concerned.
“The university’s prices are usually a little bit more expensive than ours, so I don’t think it’s going to be detrimental to the store in any way,” she said. “I just kind of shrugged it off.”
There is no expected start date for construction at this point, Brennan said. The expected completion date for construction is 2011.
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3 comments
But I suppose then people would use it and the university would lose money, whereas having better access to the bookstore will make them more money. I guess it's only logical to choose more money over healthier students.