Photos: Remember Barnes & Noble in downtown Fort Worth?

It’s been more than 12 years since Barnes & Noble left its block-long location in downtown Fort Worth’s Sundance Square. The retailer, which was struggling against the headwinds of e-commerce, also closed a University Drive store.

With news this week that Barnes & Noble will open a new store off West 7th Street, we took a look at some of the Star-Telegram’s archive photos of the old downtown store on Commerce and East 3rd streets.

The store opened in 1996 and closed on Dec. 31, 2013. Much of the bookstore’s former space is now the Cheesecake Factory.

The Star-Telegram talked to unhappy customers on B&N’s last day in downtown. Scroll down below the photos to see what they had to say back in December 2013.

April 28, 2004: Palace Theater and Barnes & Noble Booksellers in downtown Fort Worth. RODGER MALLISON FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM Sept. 6, 2013: Inside the Barnes & Noble in downtown’s Sundance Square in Fort Worth. Max Faulkner Star-Telegram Aug. 23, 2000: Musician and writer Ted Nugent mugs for a camera along with a young fan Tyler Barbare, 7, during Nugent’s book signing at Barnes and Noble in downtown Fort Worth. Ron Jenkins Fort Worth Star Telegram Aug. 23, 2000: Musician and writer Ted Nugent responds to a reporter’s question before Nugent’s book signing at Barnes and Noble in downtown Fort Worth. Ron Jenkins Fort Worth Star Telegram Sept. 6, 2013: Barnes & Noble in downtown’s Sundance Square in Fort Worth. Max Faulkner Star-Telegram Sept. 6, 2013: The Barnes & Noble in downtown’s Sundance Square in Fort Worth. Max Faulkner Star-Telegram March 7, 2001: Wayne Niemi of Dallas naps at Barnes & Noble in downtown Fort Worth. Carolyn Mary Bauman STAR-TELEGRAM Shoppers get a last chance to browse and take advantage of discounts as Barnes & Noble Booksellers closes its downtown Fort Worth bookstore on Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2013. Rodger Mallison Star-Telegram Sept. 6, 2013: Inside the Barnes & Noble in downtown’s Sundance Square in Fort Worth. Max Faulkner Star-Telegram Sept. 6, 2013: Inside the Barnes & Noble in downtown’s Sundance Square in Fort Worth. Max Faulkner Star-Telegram Apri 8, 2000: Sergei Khrushchev, the son of former soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, signs a copy of his book “Nikita Khrushchev” as Eugene Cernan signs a copy of his book “The Last Man on the Moon” for Claudia Cepeda of Houston at the downtown Barnes & Noble in Sundance Square. Jeffery Washington Star-Telegram Dec. 31, 2013: Shoppers get a last chance to browse and take advantage of discounts as Barnes & Noble Booksellers closes its downtown bookstore in Sundance Square in Fort Worth. Rodger Mallison Star-Telegram

This Star-Telegram story published on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2014:

A mismatched mix of gloom and bargain hunting filled the air Tuesday as shoppers wandered through the stacks on the last day of business at the downtown Barnes & Noble Booksellers, a Sundance Square fixture since 1996.

“I am depressed it’s going away,” said Dana Hairgrove, 28, a Dallas schoolteacher who used to live in Fort Worth. “It’s sad.”

She bought a children’s book for her class and a novel for herself, about a bookseller – Mr. Pembra’s 24-Hour Book Store. “I thought it would be fitting.”

The store, a block-long edifice along Commerce Street with an in-house Starbucks coffeehouse and a movie theater around the corner, drew shoppers to whom the retailer had imparted happy memories.

“It’s where I went for coffee after the show as a teenager. It was the most fun,” said Georgetown resident Josh McConnell, 34, who grew up in Burleson and returned Tuesday to snap up books with a $50 gift card he got for Christmas. “It’s a great day to use it with 50 percent off.”

Not all books were so heavily discounted. Those left over will be shipped to other stores.

In September, Barnes & Noble announced that it would close the downtown store for economic reasons and the University Park Village location in Fort Worth because the new landlord there, Glimcher Realty Trust in Ohio, wanted to raise the rent.

The Barnes & Noble at University Park Village also closed Tuesday at 6 p.m. with customers coming in to say goodbye, said an employee, Nick Rainone. Glimcher has indicated that it will subdivide the space for smaller retailers. The closures leave a store near Hulen Mall as the last Barnes & Noble in Fort Worth, with other Tarrant County stores in Arlington, Hurst and Southlake.

In downtown Fort Worth, former employees slipped in to hug and chat with past colleagues and bosses, creating little emotional snippets mostly unseen by busy, preoccupied shoppers.

“I’ve come to love this store,” said Gene Moore, a moonlighting school librarian who worked for years at the Sundance store and has been offered a similar position at the Hulen store in southwest Fort Worth. “There’s something so special about this store, so distinct. I can’t imagine my life without Barnes & Noble.”

Aside from being the largest single retailer in the business district, at nearly 25,000 square feet, the bookstore had a mammoth replica of Frederic Remington’s sculpture The Bronco Buster popping through the second story.

“What are they going to do with the statue?” McConnell asked.

The sculpture, fashioned out of a Styrofoam-like material and painted to look bronzed, belongs to Sundance Square. The property company won’t decide its fate until a new tenant is found, said Tracy Gilmour, Sundance’s director of marketing.

Rumors had filtered down to the children’s section that the downtown Barnes & Noble would become a franchised restaurant featuring a rich dairy-based dessert.

“Seriously, do they have to make it a Cheesecake Factory?” complained Caden Byas, 7, an outspoken second-grader from Saginaw. “I hate cheesecake.”

Johnny Campbell, Sundance Square’s president and CEO, said talks are underway with “a list” of prospective tenants, but he declined to specifically address the possibility of cherry cheesecakes being bolted down in what had been the classic literature department.

MORE: Check out Star-Telegram archive photos in our collection here, including:

Fort Worth as it looked in 1988Photos of Ridgmar Mall during its heydayDolly Parton’s 1977 concert in Fort Worth’s Panther HallFort Worth’s long-gone grocery storesFort Worth in 1990: Archive photos100 years of Boy Scouts in Fort Worth/North TexasFort Worth’s Forest Park Zoo in the 1940s-50sLong-lost restaurants of Fort WorthHollywood movie stars in Fort WorthPaschal High School in the 1950sElvis Presley in Fort WorthPresident Jimmy Carter’s visit to Fort Worth in 1978Historic photos of Fort Worth Stock Show parade1972 demolition of 18-story Worth HotelLeonards Department Store in 1940s-50sFort Worth housewives in 1952 prepare for ThanksgivingWeatherford, Texas, from 1870s to 1950sPresident Kennedy in Fort Worth, the day he diedBilly Bob’s Texas, 1981 grand opening1939 opening of West Lancaster bridge in Fort WorthKeller, Texas, during the 1920s-1950sGreater Fort Worth International Airport, 1953 openingFort Worth Stock Show, 1930s to 1950sQueen Elizabeth visits Texas in 1991Fort Worth snowfalls, from 1880s to 1950sLabor Day in Fort Worth over the decadesSept. 11, 2001, in Fort Worth and DFW airportChurches in the Fort Worth region, back to the 1800s
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Matt Leclercq

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Matt Leclercq is senior managing editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He previously was an editor at USA Today in Washington, national news editor at Gatehouse Media in Austin, and executive editor of The Fayetteville (NC) Observer. He’s a New Orleans native.