Bookmans Sports Exchange, which sells used sporting goods, is closing its doors.
The space will become the new home of the Bookmans Entertainment Exchange store, located on Grant Road and Campbell Avenue. The store has been on Grant Road for 30 years.
The sporting goods resale store opened its doors at 3330 E. Speedway three years ago and will remain open until the majority of its inventory, which is marked down by 25 percent, is sold.
Closing the sporting goods store will allow Bookmans to focus more on books, which is what the chain is all about, said Bob Oldfather, owner of Bookmans.
"We've been looking for another location for several years and because of the street widening, the landlord hasn't put any money into it and we haven't put any money into it, so we really thought about what we want to do," Oldfather said. "The truth is we're a book store. We're Bookmans. We wanted to kind of double down on that and with the sporting goods store, what was happening there was we were getting more and more new sporting goods which put us in direct competition with Amazon and Dick's and it wasn't the direction we wanted to go...It was not a failure, but it was going in a direction that wasn't really for us. We're a recycler, a reuser."
Corinne Meinhausen goes through boxes of items — prints, puzzles and stuffed toys brought in for trade, at Bookmans, 1930 E. Grant Road.
Since the sports store is in a beautiful space and is essentially the same size, it was the ideal solution to where to move the Grant Road store, Oldfather said.
Those with trade credit for the sporting goods store can use it at any Bookmans location. There are six stores — three in Tucson, one in Phoenix, one in Mesa and one in Flagstaff.
Depending on what the surrounding neighborhood wants, Bookmans Entertainment Exchange might pick up some of the free yoga classes that were offered at the sporting goods store Oldfather said.
"Because the greatest percentage of our inventory comes from our customers, the store reflects the community around it," Oldfather said. "If yoga continues to be something the community wants, there's a chance we'll have something like that. Community things is one of my big hot buttons."
