Grand Opening for Barnes & Noble

It’s a great day for book-lovers. Barnes & Noble Booksellers is now open at South Hill Mall. A Grand Opening Celebration will begin today with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 AM. Throughout the day, until 3 PM, a terrific lineup of authors will be on hand to autograph books for their fans. Among them will be mystery novelist J.A. Jance, children’s book author Amanda Noll and romance writer E.M. Wilson.

The new Barnes & Noble occupies more than 19,000 square feet near JCPenney and DSW, featuring a magnificent selection of traditional fiction and non-fiction works, as well as subscription services for online books. Customers will also find a comfortable café where they can relax with a beverage and a snack to complement their reading. Barnes & Noble’s beginnings can be traced to 1873, when Charles M. Barnes started a book business from his home in Wheaton, Illinois. At present, Barnes & Noble serves over 600 communities in all 50 states and remains the #1 book retailer in the United States.

South Hill Mall, located at Highway 512 and South Meridian Street in Puyallup, Washington, has been serving the people of the South Sound area since 1988. South Hill Mall is owned and managed in association with the Cafaro family of companies, based in Niles, Ohio. Cafaro, one of the nation’s largest privately held shopping center developers, has developed more than 30 million square feet of retail space in 14 states. Learn more at www.cafarocompany.com.

###

Barnes & Noble celebrated the opening of its newest retail location at the South Hill Mall in Puyallup Wednesday among throngs of bibliophiles and with the help of best-selling author J.A. Jance to cut the ribbon.

Located inside the mall and occupying the former Super Jump Party Zone site near JCPenney, the 19,000-square-foot bookstore is the first retail experience of its kind in the vicinity in many years, according to a press release from Barnes & Noble.

“It has been over a decade since the Borders Bookstore closed just across the road from where we are to open this beautiful new Barnes & Noble,” James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble, said in a statement. “Our booksellers are delighted to bring back a bookstore of such scale to Puyallup.”

This new location comes on the heels of the bookseller’s recent boon, adding more bookstores in a single year (2024) than it had in the entire decade from 2009-19. This uptick in store openings is owed to the chain’s strategy to hand control of each store over to local booksellers, according to the release.

The new location includes a café, as well as the usual books, games, toys, and gifts one would expect to find at a Barnes & Noble.

“We have an enthusiastic team of book lovers who are so excited to bring the joy of reading to this community,” Store Manager and Barnes & Noble veteran Lisa Collinsworth said in the release. “Readers who visit our new bookstore are sure to find hidden treasures on the way to that long-anticipated new release — come see for yourself.”

The opening of the bookstore marks the fourth in a series of five major projects South Hill Mall’s Ohio-based parent company Cafaro Co. was scheduled to bring online in late 2025 and early 2026. Already opened amenities include an Xfinity by Comcast store, a Discount Collection store, and the five-story Homewood Suites by Hilton.

Still yet to be unveiled in summer 2026, South Hill Mall will debut its new 31,000-square-foot international grocery store, Hong Kong Market, located inside the detached former Toys “R” Us building adjacent to Red Robin on 94th Avenue East. In addition to a selection of fresh produce, meat, fish, and poultry, the market will also contain a food hall.

Tag: Bookstore

Barnes & Noble Celebrates Grand Opening

Grand Opening for Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble joins slate of new offerings at Puyallup’s South Hill Mall

Barnes & Noble Joins Slate of New Offerings at Puyallup’s South Hill Mall