McNally Robinson Booksellers closes Don Mills store

Independent Canadian bookseller McNally Robinson is closing two of its stores, including its only Toronto location near Don Mills and Lawrence.

The company made the announcement Tuesday, and the store closed immediately that day. A location at Polo Park in Winnipeg will close Jan. 3.

In a news release, the company blames changes in the book industry for the move.

"Booksellers in Canada are currently working against serious headwinds: recession, stagnant book prices, steep discounting, and increasing competition from internet sales and electronic text formats," the release said.

The release said the Don Mills store proved substantially unprofitable. The location, the company’s fourth, had been open less than a year.

In a statement on its Web site, the company said the decision to close the stores had been a "heart-rending process."

The news release said 175 people would lose their jobs between the two stores. According to reports, staff at the Toronto store were notified of the closure Tuesday morning.

"To the committed and brilliant booksellers who tried so hard to make Polo Park and Don Mills work, we are deeply sorry," read a post on the McNally Robinson Web site. "To the customers who embraced those stores, we regret we cannot continue them."

The Toronto outlet was 20,000 square feet and featured an 80-seat restaurant called Prairie Ink. It was part of the redevelopment of the former Don Mills Centre into the Cadillac Fairview-owned Shops at Don Mills, described as "Ontario’s first urban village."

Like the other McNally Robinson locations, the Don Mills store hosted frequent readings, book signings and cultural events.

The company is keeping open its flagship Winnipeg store, as well as one in Saskatoon. A location in Calgary had closed in 2008.

McNally Robinson was founded in Winnipeg in 1981 and has become Canada’s largest independent bookseller. It has been named Canadian independent bookseller of the year seven times since 1996.