A new Barnes & Noble will open in a busy Columbia mall. Here’s when and where

Midlands book lovers have a date to circle on their calendar for the opening of a new store from a national bookseller.

Barnes & Noble, which has locations across the U.S., will open a new store in the Columbiana Centre mall in the Harbison shopping district northwest of downtown Columbia, according to Barnes & Noble senior director of store planning and design Janine Flanigan. The store is set to open Oct. 9, Flanigan told The State.

The new Barnes & Noble will be in storefront No. 1222 in the mall, just south of the food court. That space was formerly occupied by a clothing store called Edge. Other stores near that space include Pro Image Sports, Aldo, and Windsor, among others.

The company has been teasing a Columbiana Centre location on social media since earlier in the summer, and has been sharing construction updates on Instagram.

The Columbiana Barnes & Noble will be about 5,800-square-feet, Flanigan said, and will have the same look and aesthetic as other Barnes & Noble stores opened in recent years.

This will be the second new Barnes & Noble location the company has opened in Columbia in 2024. The company closed its store at Richland Mall in Forest Acres — which is currently being demolished amid a $100 million overhaul — and relocated it to the Shoppes at Woodhill shopping center on Garners Ferry Road. That location opened in March and proved immediately popular with book lovers.

The new store in Columbiana Centre will mark a return to the Harbison area for Barnes & Noble. It previously had a location at 278-A Harbison Blvd., across the road from the mall, but that spot closed in 2013. There are about 600 Barnes & Noble bookstores nationwide, per the company’s website.

The Harbison Boulevard area continues to be one of the key retail hubs in the Columbia area, lined with stores, restaurants, theaters and more. More than 31,000 cars per day travel down Harbison near the mall, per state traffic statistics.