Amazon has plans for the second D.C.-area location of its brick-and-mortar bookstore and, like the first, it will enter a retail center once anchored by Barnes & Noble.
The e-commerce giant will open an Amazon Books in a 6K SF space at 7117 Arlington Road in Bethesda, part of Federal Realty's Bethesda Row, Bethesda Magazine reports. The storefront is currently occupied by Urban Country, which will move to the former City Sports space next door.
Barnes & Noble earlier this year announced its bookstore that has anchored Bethesda Row for 20 years will shut its doors by Jan. 1. Women's retailer Anthropologie plans to open a large-format department store in the former Barnes & Noble space next fall.
The Bethesda deal follows Amazon's decision earlier this year to lease 10K SF in Georgetown for its first D.C. bookstore. That store will open on the same block where a multilevel Barnes & Noble closed in 2011.
The first iteration of Amazon's bookstore concept opened in its hometown of Seattle in November 2015, also in a mall previously occupied by a Barnes & Noble. The tech company has said it aims to eventually open 400 of the bookstores.
