Bye-Bye Borders Books: Liquidation Could Begin Friday

Borders Group Inc. has announced that it will close all remaining 399 bookstores nationwide, including one in Sunset Hills, for a total of six in the St. Louis area.

A pair of firms is set to buy the Group, only to liquidate what's left of the Ann Arbor, MI,-based chain.

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

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."

The shuttering comes after Borders announced its closing of nearly half its stores after the first of the year, in an effort to shore up the balance sheet for potential sale.

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.

A Sunset Plaza Borders store employee said Monday night that the Borders job was one of two jobs, because he was paying off college student loans with the extra work. He hoped to be kept on by the liquidators, but said there had been no promises.

He could be out of a job by Friday, he supposed.

The Sunset Hills is in Sunset Plaza shopping and dining center, on E. Watson Road between S. Geyer Road and Lindbergh Boulevard.

A customer poring over maps and travel guides Monday night in the Sunset Hills Borders said she had heard the gloomy news about closings.

"The economy is pretty bad right now," she said.

The chain would be liquidated under Chapter 11 bankruptcy code.

According to the Borders website, there are five other stores in the St. Louis area besides Sunset Hills—Creve Coeur, Brentwood, South St. Louis County, Edwardsville, IL, and Fairview Heights, IL.

Chesterfield Mall and Ballwin Borders stores closed earlier this year.