Woodbury Borders To Close

The final chapter for the Woodbury location is coming to an end.

Officials at the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Borders Group, Inc., announced Monday that they plan to sell the assets of its remaining 399 stores to liquidators, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reported.

A manager at the Woodbury Borders told Patch that the store could be closed within a month or two. The manager spoke on condition of anonymity, as employees have been instructed not to speak with the press.

Employees at the Woodbury location, 8472 Tamarack Bay, don’t know much more than what’s already been reported, the manager said. A schedule for when stores will close is expected to come from company leaders on Friday.

“By then, we will probably know more,” the manager said.

There are about 30 people employed at the Woodbury Borders and the store has had a location in town for about nine years, the manager said.

Remaining Borders stores in Coon Rapids and Roseville will also close, the Business Journal reported. Borders had closed its Maple Grove, Richfield and St. Paul locations earlier this year.

In a statement, Borders Group Inc. President Mike Edwards said: "We were all working hard towards a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, eReader revolution and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now."

Pending court approval, liquidation of some stores could happen as early as Friday and all would be completed by September.

The chain once had more than 1,000 stores, according to a Bloomberg article online late Monday, and Borders has some 10,700 remaining employees.