Book Center close to signing lease with U.

Last-minute talks may save the independent bookstore from closure. Just two days ago, Achilles Nickles was distraught over the future of the bookstore which has been his life's work for the past 35 years -- he was expecting to close the doors of the Pennsylvania Book Center and walk away at the end of the summer. Nickles figured his store would follow the lead of several other 38th and Walnut Street retailers, all of which are being dislodged by construction of a new 300,000-square-foot Wharton graduate facility. But at a "final meeting" yesterday which would determine the fate of the Book Center, things worked out quite differently, and Nickles appeared a changed man. "Things are looking up," Nickles said. "Things are really looking up." Though Managing Director of Real Estate Tom Lussenhop would only describe the meeting's outcome as "positive," Nickles said that a lease could be signed for the former Sam Goody location in the 3401 Walnut Street complex either this week or next. Both Nickles and Lussenhop declined to reveal the specifics of the lease arrangements being discussed. But Nickles did say that the University had previously sent him a letter deeming the rental price of the 3401 location "non-negotiable," but that at yesterday's meeting the two sides found common ground on "a number of factors that were important," including price. Responding to a November 1996 announcement, The Book Store building is set to be demolished this fall, and the Penn Book Center has until August 14 to vacate its premises. But Nickles needs to know soon if he will be in business next fall, since he usually places professors' fall textbook orders right around now. These particular negotiations have been difficult for many members of the English department who rely upon the Book Center for their fall textbook orders, according to English Professor Robert Regan, who also serves as chairperson of the University's Bookstore Committee. "I've gotten a lot of e-mail from colleagues who are concerned about this," Regan said. "I hope that they will find a convenient location and that competition continues." Nickles said he believes a lease will be signed soon enough for him to be able to fill book orders for the fall. "We would certainly try our best," he said. "It's an important part of our business." If the Book Center does move to the 3401 site, it would join two other merchants displaced by the University's development effort: Auntie Anne's Pretzels, which is moving from Houston Hall to the former Cinnabon site in 3401; and University Jewelers, which -- like the Book Center -- is leaving University Plaza on the 3700 block of Walnut Street for space recently vacated by Metro Hair. Howard Gensler, owner of Classical Choice -- a University Plaza merchant that decided to move to Center City February after leasing talks with the University fell apart -- does not think that Penn has not been negotiating in good faith with the Book Center. "They [in the University] have a somewhat unreasonable regard for the value of their own property," said Gensler, a member of The Daily Pennsylvanian Alumni Association Board of Directors. "When you own every piece of property in the neighborhood, you have a lot of say in what goes where." Before he moved his store downtown, Gensler had been negotiating for the same space in the former Sam Goody site where the Book Center is poised to relocate. He said that the space had been offered to him at $31 a square foot, far higher than the price he pays at his current location. What every side does agree upon, however, is that the University community needs the presence of an independent bookstore. "It loses a certain amount of vitality on the campus when you just have one monolithic bookstore," Nickles said. "To be an Ivy League university and not have an academic bookstore on your campus, I don't think that says what [the University] wants it to say," Gensler added.

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