A veteran of Toronto's independent retail-book business will open a bookstore bearing his name in the heart of the city's financial district in June.
Ben McNally confirmed this week that his store will be located in a 225-square-metre street-front space he's leasing on Bay Street between Adelaide and Richmond Streets West. Opening day is June 14, “my wife's birthday.”
Until January, McNally, 57, had been the popular general manager of Nicholas Hoare bookshop on Front Street East, a position he'd held since the outlet opened in October, 1990. However, in late November last year, he announced he was leaving the mini-chain, which also runs stores in Montreal and Ottawa, over unspecified “philosophical differences” with owner Hoare.
Backed by three unnamed partners, McNally's store will sell what he calls “quality books,” and a “tightly edited” selection at that, given that the Bay Street venue has only slightly more than one-half the area of the Hoare store he managed. Ben McNally Books will sell that and only that – no magazines, no CDs or DVDs, no candles or stationery and no coffee (“There's already a Tim Hortons down the block”) – and, in most instances, they'll be sold at full price since “I think you do a disservice to publishers if you [discount],” he said.
McNally predicted he'd probably carry fewer of the visual-arts titles that were something of a Nicholas Hoare signature and go “a little bit heavier on the philosophy and social-sciences side of things.”
Although McNally said he believes “it's a great time for retail books,” his store will definitely have to carve out a profitable niche on the basis of impeccable selection, reliable service and inviting ambience. The Chapters/Indigo chain already operates a Coles outlet in nearby First Canadian Place and an Indigo store to the northeast, in the Eaton Centre. Meanwhile, two independent stores, one devoted exclusively to audio-books, the other to business books, are located just minutes from McNally's planned location.
What the McNally operation will have going for it is the sheer density of the population in the area, particularly during the day. Moreover, it's a district destined to become even more populous as the revamped Bay-Adelaide Centre is set for completion in 2009 and construction starts this summer on the 70-storey Trump International Hotel and Tower.
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