There’s a beating heart in the center of Lake Forest Park, and it’s no accident. Ron Sher bought a big chunk of sleepy Lake Forest Park Towne Centre Mall in 1998 and got into the book business. He had transformed Crossroads Mall in Bellevue and applied what he’d learned to Third Place Books.
The basic mantra of environmentalism is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” and Third Place Books excels at reuse. All those used books they sell are ready for reading again and didn’t end up in a landfill or even a recycling bin.
According to their website “Sociologist Ray Oldenberg suggests that each of us needs three places: first is the home; second is the workplace or school; and beyond lies the place where people from all walks of life interact, experiencing and celebrating their commonality as well as their diversity. It is a third place. In his celebrated book, The Great Good Place, Oldenberg discusses how the cafes, pubs, town squares and other gathering places make a community stronger and bring people together.” I’ve read it. It’s wonderful.
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“Third Place Books is a general interest bookstore with over 200,000 New, Used, and Bargain Books. Third Place books is the deliberate and intentional creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. It is a fun, comfortable, and safe place to browse, linger, lounge, relax, read, eat, laugh, play, talk, listen, and just watch the world go by.”
That describes a greater sense of , that of building stronger, denser, mutually supportive neighborhoods so people don’t feel required to go long distances to meet their needs or desires. Third Place puts on a long list of readings and other events and anchors the rest of the mall, materially improving Lake Forest Park. The city returns the favor by showing up en masse.