HomeGoods to open in Bay Terrace next month

By Gina Martinez

HomeGoods is finally coming to the Bay Terrace Shopping Center. The store, which sells a wide variety of affordable home decor, is set to open in mid-October.

HomeGoods replaced a 25,000-square-foot Barnes & Noble bookstore, whose closing caused outrage in the community when it was first announced last year. The Bay Terrace bookstore was the last remaining Barnes & Noble in Queens after the Forest Hills location shut its doors.It was eventually replaced by Target.

According to HomeGoods, the new Bayside store will open Oct. 16 at 8 a.m. The store is expected to hire 65 full and part-time employees.

Bayside residents tried to save the Barnes & Noble.

Resident Vasiliki Gliagias started an online petition on change.org called “Do not close the Bay Terrace Barnes & Noble retail location!” last year when the news of the bookstore’s final days was announced. The petition had 3,247 supporters, just short of its 5,000 goal. On the page Gliagias urged Cord Meyer Development,which owns the Bay Terrace Shopping Center, to negotiate with Barnes & Noble on a leasing deal.

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“The Queens community is in disbelief that a 25,000-square-foot bookstore so important to the community with activities for students and children, an incredible book selection, and a refreshing Starbucks corner could ever shut down,” she wrote. “It is an atrocity to rid the largest borough of New York City of its most popular bookstore. Queens’s 2 million residents will no longer be able to partake in browsing and purchasing novels at their leisure. Bookstores will have been a thing of the past.”

David Deason, vice president of Barnes & Noble Development, released a statement on the closing of the Bayside location.

“Despite our best efforts to secure lease extensions at both our Forest Hills and Bayside Barnes & Noble locations, the respective property owners decided to lease to other tenants,” he said. “When our lease came back up for renewal, the property owner notified us that they chose a tenant who was willing to pay rents far in excess of what we were willing to pay.”

But months later it seems the community is adjusting and is ready for the new store. Warren Schreiber, president of the Bay Terrace Community alliance, said there is a lot of anticipation in the neighborhood.

“From what I understand people are excited, “he said. “They’re looking forward to its opening. HomeGoods is very popular and I think they’re going to do very well, especially on its opening day, Oct. 16. I’m pleased to have them in the neighborhood as it seems everyone is. There’s nothing negative about it. I certainly hope they do well and become a good neighbor.”

Reach Gina Martinez by e-mail at gmartinez@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4566.