Give the People What They Want
September 28, 2008
Being an eminent domain attorney who represents property owners by day and a book seller by night, I was intrigued by a recent story about a new Barnes & Nobles in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the home of Rutgers. I love bookstores and Barnes & Noble is a great big bookstore so my hats off to them. The problem is that the city of New Brunswick threatened to use its power of eminent domain to “clear out” an independent bookstore to make room for the Barnes & Noble. The motivation was undoubtedly higher projected tax revenues from the re-developed site and the big box store. In theory the power of eminent domain reflects the will of the people, which begs the question, is this the will of the people? Goodbye independents and hello big box bookstores? Maybe in New Jersey, but I hope not here in the Sunshine state. By the way, this could not happen under Florida law, and Urban Think isn’t going anywhere. So stop by the store, by a book and show us the will of the people. Read the world but be local. Happy reading. - Bruce
Here’s the article:
Notes: B&N College Enters Rutgers; New Bookstores
Barnes & Noble College will be an anchor tenant in a major mixed-use development that Rutgers University is building in New Brunswick, N.J., where its main campus is, according to the Star-Ledger. B&N becomes Rutgers’s bookseller on Monday, replacing Follett. The Gateway project includes a 44,000-sq.-ft. bookstore that replaces the current 19,000-sq.-ft. store at Ferren Mall and is expected to be completed in two years.
Rutgers president Richard McCormick sounded as though he had attended a prospective booksellers seminar recently, telling the paper, “I have a very ambitious view of our new bookstore. [It] will be a campus center, a gathering place for Rutgers faculty, students and staff and the larger community. There will be readings by authors hopping off the train from New York and Philadelphia. . . . It’s going to be the kind of bookstore that Rutgers needs and deserves.”
New Jersey Books, a private bookstore, had challenged the city’s attempt to seize its property for the development through eminent domain but has since come to an agreement whereby the store is being relocated.
Entry Filed under: Writerly News. .
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed