Book Market Closing When Lease Expires

The Book Market, a giant bookstore in the former J.C. Penney Co. building, will close when the store lease expires March 12.

Although the Book Market was set up as a temporary test of the discount book market here, owners extended the lease past the holidays after a successful start, said store manager Paul Brilla.

But sales dropped sharply after Christmas. “The readership just never took place,” Brilla said.

The Book Market is a subsidiary of the Book Warehouse chain, which has a store at the Factory Outlets in Post Falls. The Book Market’s 10 employees will resume job searches after a final sale offering all books for under $3. Unsold books will go to Book Warehouse headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn.

The store stocks hundreds of thousands of books and fills a niche with teachers and small libraries.

“It’s not as if we didn’t provide a benefit to the community,” Brilla said.