Cumberland-Area Borders to Close

The Smyrna-Vinings area is losing its Borders store in the wake of the bookstore chain's bankruptcy filing Wednesday.

The Borders location at , in the Parkway Pointe Shopping Center south of Cumberland Mall, is one of five stores in the metro Atlanta area and more than 200 across the country that will close in the coming weeks. 

The is another nearby store that will be closing. Borders spokesman, Donald Cutler, called it a “strategic store reduction program.”

“These closings are a result of economic conditions, cost structures and viability of the locations, among other factors,” he said in a phone interview with Patch on Wednesday.

In this case, store viability means its ability to generate revenue. Some of those factors included foot traffic, number of events taking place at the specific locations and the sizes of these locations, Cutler explained.

Although the stores do not yet have a concrete closing date, Cutler said they will continue to get information to the courts and will have a date soon. Cutler could only say that the date is “several weeks away” and “probably within the end of April timeframe, but it’s floating at this point.”

Employees were advised not to speak to members of the press on this matter, and Cutler said they will not release “the specifics of the options for the employees that are affected by the store closures.”

The Ann Arbor, MI-based book retailer filed Chapter 11 papers and announced it was shuttering nearly a third of 674 locations nationwide as it reorganizes. 

Borders has been fighting substantial financial odds for several months and recently stopped payments to various publishers. Industry analysts have pointed to Borders' troubles stemming from its inability to adapt to digital consumer trends, especially a decision in 2001 to transfer its online business to Amazon.com.