Hopes of attracting a major bookseller to the vacated Borders store at Gallagher Retail Park are fading after it emerged the shop is likely to be split in two.
Letting agents are understood to be in serious discussions with potential tenants including coffee shops keen on the first floor space but hopes of bringing another bookshop to the site are receding.
More than 8000 people signed online and paper petitions when Borders closed late last year, so desperate was the Dundee public to retain the store.
As the chain slipped into administration, the shop’s doors were closed following a fire sale of stock. Efforts over the past 10 months by local book and reading campaigners have failed to find a new, bookselling tenant for the shop unit but they still hope a reading resource of some kind can be retained.
Chris Humphrey, from the letting agents Colliers, said they were in serious negotiations with a potential client for the site. However, he added, it was increasingly likely that the unit would be subdivided.
“We have been trying to explore potential options with regard to the site,” he said. “If there isn’t anyone to take the unit on, we have been thinking about what we can do in terms of subdividing it.
“We have had some considerable interest from coffee shop operators and have been speaking to a number of national restaurant operators about potentially doing something here. It’s lovely unit and it looks great,” he said. “And at the moment there’s no restaurant or coffee on offer in the park.
“We’ve explored how we can use the building, and it’s slightly complicated in terms of how we subdivide it because it is listed and some internal features are listed,” said Mr Humphrey.
Alyson Leslie, who has led the campaign to bring a bookseller back to the site, said she still hadn’t given up hope and plans to speak to potential tenants about giving their operations a reading “theme.”Themed space”It seems likely the old Borders site will be split and a coffee shop or eatery of some kind may take up some of the divided space,” she said. “My next plan of campaign is to talk with those potential leaseholders about making it a themed space.
“These days there are libraries in pubs and even phone kiosks, so why not a book exchange and specialist bookstore in a coffee shop? How will it work? I haven’t a clue so far, but am working on the principle that if something is right, the right people will come across my path and the right connections will be made.
“Dundee is a community of readers. Of course many of us, for ease, will continue to buy books online or download e-books, and that market will grow.
“But there is unquestionably room, and a market, in the city for lots of different kinds of spaces which encourage reading and the love of books and the things you can’t get so easily online-the sharing of the love of books and the experience of being among books.”