As a former student at Wesleyan I can safely say the bookstore is NOT up to par with the rest of the University. There has been discussion to rebuild the bookstore and put it in a more visible location which, I feel, will benefit the school but more importantly the paying customers (students).
There has been discussion about the Red & Black Cafe that is attached to the failing bookstore and whether or not they can survive without the school store. The owner said in a recent blog post that profit is NOT affected based off the success of the bookstore.
Wouldn’t it be smart to upgrade the bookstore to meet the standards of the university and at the same time relocate it to an area of campus where the students actually go? It leads me to question Why the school hasn't done this years ago…
Are you a part of this business deal? Here is another post by you. "MiddletownLife 11:11 am on Thursday, November 15, 2012 Finally! An opportunity to create jobs in Middletown, It’s not only selfish but truly harmful towards the economic growth of our community if we have people trying to stop this. In order to make Middletown a top notch city in CT it requires us to create jobs and increase the amount of local businesses. It cannot have worked out any better for our city; a local Middletown Developer is building a local Middletown business that will hire local Middletown residents. As for creating competition among other retailers in the area, just remember "Competition breeds improvement", if you cannot handle that than you should not be in the business world." You clearly read the Red and Black cafes post but you skipped or ignored the fact the the bookstore business environment is in the weeds. Part of what makes Middletown unique is its original, locally owned businesses.
Fortunately, there is no argument here my friend. From what I read the Red & Black Cafe CAN do what they would like with or without the bookstore being there. It’s just a matter of the paying students having a more comfortable place to go find books and possibly enjoy a meal. Clearly like you had mentioned the bookstore is "in the weeds", which means it’s time to improve it or it will keep costing the school money. I love Middletown because of how unique it is, do not fret, by upgrading the Wesleyan bookstore Middletown will remain unique, if I thought otherwise I would be the first one to complain.
The proposed new bookstore is not even one campus.
What is uncomfortable about going to the current book store? Looks comfortable to me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TPiKFfFSY0 Yes the bookstore business is having troubles. You ignore the why part. Amazon.com/Internet sales and Digitizing books is the cause of this. Please tell me how a new larger book store addresses these issues. I am interested in new developments but for the right reasons.
1.) Book sales are going down do to these new tablets that eliminate the purpose of a hard copy book. I'm sure if any of you have ever been to college the "bookstore" makes money not on the "books" but on the "other" inventory they sell in the store such as school supplies, Wesleyan apparel, and dorm necessities etc. (which the new bookstore will include). Just because book sales are down and probably will remain down does not mean that the school is ever going to stop selling books to their own classes. Not all students have laptops or kindles to read these books assigned by their teachers. What I am trying to say is there still is a demand for books, look at Yale or Harvard’s Bookstore, they are top notch schools who have created fantastic bookstores & so should Wesleyan.
3.) The New book store is ON campus Property Map … In fact it is much closer to the main population of the students than the current one, plus a lot of students who are walking down town will now be able to stop and check out the bookstore. I can’t tell if any if any of you actually care about the Wesleyan students or are just simply arguing this just for the sake of arguing, just like the lifeless political bloggers. In the end, the Red & Black Café will remain there & Wesleyan Students will get a nicer bookstore at the expense of the developer and at no expense to the school. All will remain the same except the school will have a slight upgrade.
Where is this main population of students that your thinking? Cause housing is all over campus. The current bookstore is comfortable. It close to student housing. Its a block away from main street. Why are you comparing it to the other schools. Everything has its pros and cons and there are WAY too many cons about this development. I ALSO cant tell if you care about Wesleyan students or you just want to develop on Washington street.