Harvard Book Store owner Jeff Mayersohn told GBH News that he was excited by the opportunity to expand to the Prudential Center, a marquee downtown shopping location. With an expected 29,000 square feet, the former Barnes and Noble store also would have provided a much larger footprint than the 5,500 square feet of the original Cambridge location.
“It was a very ambitious project to begin with, and certainly much bigger than anything the bookstore itself has ever done,” he said.
The project started during the pandemic and costs started rising due to supply chain issues, labor shortages and inflation. Mayersohn said they tried multiple times to make the store happen by revising the design and staffing needs. Construction had already begun, but the escalating price eventually reached a point that it was no longer viable to continue with the new location.
Despite the recent cancellation of Harvard Book Store’s planned second location at the Prudential Center, independent booksellers say business is going well and they are hopeful about the future for bookstores in Boston.
Mayersohn said the Cambridge location continues to thrive — revenue is up, author events are popular and customers are coming back again and again. He said his focus now is investing further in that location.