Status Update: Barnes & Noble expansion continues, this time to South Coast Plaza

It will include its own company-branded B&N Café, plus an exterior patio.

Barnes & Noble is coming to South Coast Plaza.

The bookseller is setting up shop in the Macy’s Home wing, which shoppers reach either by walking the pedestrian bridge over Bear Street or by parking under or next to the smaller of the two SCP retail centers.

Signage at the former Sports Authority store alerted readers to the new store, which Barnes & Noble confirmed via email to the Register.

The company said the 27,000-square-foot, single-story bookstore should be open by summer 2026. It will include its own company-branded B&N Café, plus an exterior patio.

Ironically, Barnes & Noble will be not that far from the former Borders bookstore, which closed 15 years ago as the national chain went bankrupt in 2010-11.

Barnes & Noble has been on an expansion kick in Orange County. It opened in 2023 in the former Aki Home store at the District at Tustin Legacy shopping center. It then pivoted in Orange, moving from its former store on Main Street, which burned in 2023, to its new home in the former Van’s Skate Park at the Outlets at Orange. That store opened in December. Another store also opened in November in Brea.

Other California stores opened in Brentwood, La Jolla and Los Gatos in Northern California. The company said three more stores are due this year in Clovis, Turlock and Elk Grove.

Since being acquired by a private equity firm and taken private in 2019, the company has been rebuilding. It plans on opening 60 stores nationwide in 2026, a company representative said.

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