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Schuler Books goes downtown


Rizzo

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Bill, what's your place going to be called?

Schuler's Downtown?

Schuler's at Riverbank? (Save you some etched glass replacement. The URL is probably available cheap.)

[project in mind]

I signs on the door say Schuler's Downtown I believe.

I rode past there yesterday and noticed lights were on inside and I thought I saw movement.. maybe not :whoknows:

Edit- Rode past again after work... Schuler's Books Downtown

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Im wondering where is the nearest parking ramp to the bookstore is there on near by? Th closest one i can think of is down by Kendell. One thing alot of businesses downtown can do to help there customers is direct them to where parking is nearby. One place i went to the girl at the register had no clue.

The Monroe Center ramp is right across the street from Schuler's entrance on Monroe Center (the Blue Cross Blue Shield foyer). You enter the Monroe Center ramp off of Ionia by Louis Benton Steakhouse, then take the walkway out to Monroe Center, hop across the street and you're there. Definitely downtown retail clerks should know the ins and outs of the parking system.

Or there is the ramp at Pearl and Ionia that may even be closer. It's right next to the Peninsular Club on Fountain Street.

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There is always an hour of free parking at the Monroe Center lot!

Especially in the winter, this is a great option for the downtown bookstore, and nearly anything else nearby.

Your walk ends up being about the same as parking at a Big Box, but 90% of it is covered and/or indoors.

Nice.

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Wonder what it would take to offer a stamp (a couple of hours) for free parking or offer (Miami Beach-like) valet parking?

I like the idea of providing parking validations with purchase. The more stores you shop at, or the more stuff you buy, the more free time you can get. 60 free minutes is a good start, but I'm guessing that there are many people who would stay and shop for more than an hour if they didn't have to worry about the hourly cost of parking, which can add up quickly. However, I think the question then becomes who is paying for it? If local merchants have to raise their prices to cover the expense, then is it actually worth it? Or is it something that the city would simply cover in exchange for an increase in downtown businesses, and therefore an increase in tax revenue? I don't know who pays for the current 60 free minutes, but I assume this would be similar. Is the current 60 free minutes available all the time, or only certain days and times? Is it only the Monroe Center ramp?

Back to the topic at hand, just like everyone else I think this bookstore will be great for downtown. Personally, I probably won't be a frequent customer simply because I don't buy a large number of books, but the next time I'm looking for something I'll be sure to check out this location. I hope this bookstore does very well and inspires others to bring additional retail downtown.

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I like the idea of providing parking validations with purchase. The more stores you shop at, or the more stuff you buy, the more free time you can get. 60 free minutes is a good start, but I'm guessing that there are many people who would stay and shop for more than an hour if they didn't have to worry about the hourly cost of parking, which can add up quickly. However, I think the question then becomes who is paying for it? If local merchants have to raise their prices to cover the expense, then is it actually worth it? Or is it something that the city would simply cover in exchange for an increase in downtown businesses, and therefore an increase in tax revenue? I don't know who pays for the current 60 free minutes, but I assume this would be similar. Is the current 60 free minutes available all the time, or only certain days and times? Is it only the Monroe Center ramp?

Back to the topic at hand, just like everyone else I think this bookstore will be great for downtown. Personally, I probably won't be a frequent customer simply because I don't buy a large number of books, but the next time I'm looking for something I'll be sure to check out this location. I hope this bookstore does very well and inspires others to bring additional retail downtown.

I don't buy too many books, but I will now just to go to and support the store! (Plus, I SHOULD be buying more books!)

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First, I'm delighted that Schulers is re-opening the downtown store!

My 2 pence

- There used to be a Borders in the Financial District in Boston. One of the things they did was to try and attract the lunch crowd from the various downtown offices. During the summer they had a 3 piece jazz band a couple of times week during lunch (the sort of music that lawyers etc, want to listen to). As much as I liked "Riverbanks", the choice of bands never seemed appropriate (garage bands simply will not do for this crowd). They also tried to get books and speakers that would attract this same crowd.

- Attract the college professors from Grand Valley, Calvin, Aquinas etc. Many GVSU professors live in Heritage Hill (Calvin's live in Eastown), and profs love books. I know of several GVSU professors who did not even know that Riverbanks existed!

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Is it possible for Schuler's Downtown to break into the textbook market? The Barnes & Nobles near Wayne State and Oakland University both have textbook departments that compete with some of the other textbook stores. It seems that allocating a portion of the space for textbooks would be a cash cow, considering all of the GRCC and GVSU students around.

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I like the idea of providing parking validations with purchase. The more stores you shop at, or the more stuff you buy, the more free time you can get. 60 free minutes is a good start, but I'm guessing that there are many people who would stay and shop for more than an hour if they didn't have to worry about the hourly cost of parking, which can add up quickly. However, I think the question then becomes who is paying for it? If local merchants have to raise their prices to cover the expense, then is it actually worth it? Or is it something that the city would simply cover in exchange for an increase in downtown businesses, and therefore an increase in tax revenue? I don't know who pays for the current 60 free minutes, but I assume this would be similar. Is the current 60 free minutes available all the time, or only certain days and times? Is it only the Monroe Center ramp?

The way I've seen this work (on the few occasions I've had parking validated) is:

--patron pulls into ramp, takes ticket, parks car

--patron remembers to bring ticket along

--patron remembers to have merchant stamp ticket

--upon exit, parking chendarme sees validation stamp, waives the fee

There are several opportunities for this to not "cost" anything. At worse, there's a car taking up a space and not putting corresponding bucks into the City's coffers.

Incidentally, the City validates parking for folks attending job interviews in City Hall departments, or HR testing. And when the car has an out-of-state tag, the parking attendant sometimes loses track of time and waives any fee. (One of my regular visitors arrives in an Indiana vehicle, and I make him take me to Olive Express. Seen it happen in person.)

Back to the topic at hand, just like everyone else I think this bookstore will be great for downtown. Personally, I probably won't be a frequent customer simply because I don't buy a large number of books, but the next time I'm looking for something I'll be sure to check out this location. I hope this bookstore does very well and inspires others to bring additional retail downtown.

They'll have more than first-run hardcover books. RB was a great place to hang out in the cafe and read the paper, Wifi, socialize. When I was performing my due diligence prior to relocating to the 616, I found the 28th Street location to be an excellent resource for freebie papers (On The Town, et al), the bulletin board, and so forth.

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Is it possible for Schuler's Downtown to break into the textbook market? The Barnes & Nobles near Wayne State and Oakland University both have textbook departments that compete with some of the other textbook stores. It seems that allocating a portion of the space for textbooks would be a cash cow, considering all of the GRCC and GVSU students around.

I'd guess not. I don't know Schuler's, but textbooks for B&N is a nationwide (perhaps even global) enterprise. They own something like 25% of all on-campus college bookstores. So B&N already has the infrastructure in place to do all this and it's a big-time undertaking. I'm not even sure it's a cash cow. The textbook publishers set the prices and won't budge (I've heard).

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I'd guess not. I don't know Schuler's, but textbooks for B&N is a nationwide (perhaps even global) enterprise. They own something like 25% of all on-campus college bookstores. So B&N already has the infrastructure in place to do all this and it's a big-time undertaking. I'm not even sure it's a cash cow. The textbook publishers set the prices and won't budge (I've heard).

Can you also imagine how much shelf space would be needed to handle a decent selection of textbooks? At Western, there were two bookstores on campus that carried JUST textbooks, and they were larger than Schuler's downtown space is.

Not to poopoo your idea Parhelion, but I don't see it working very well.

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Can you also imagine how much shelf space would be needed to handle a decent selection of textbooks? At Western, there were two bookstores on campus that carried JUST textbooks, and they were larger than Schuler's downtown space is.

Not to poopoo your idea Parhelion, but I don't see it working very well.

Actually...Deb was originally planning to have textbooks downstairs. (I have no idea how large that space is.)

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Actually...Deb was originally planning to have textbooks downstairs. (I have no idea how large that space is.)

Downstairs?!

Any idea how much space is down there? I'm guessing it would have to be used primarily for inventory, but could retail expansion be a possibility?

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We've already got Brian's Books downtown for textbooks.

Brian's Books downtown doesn't do anything for Aquinas students. The Aquinas bookstore is tiny. The textbook market is a good market to go into; students have to buy that and a place that would be more competitive would be great. However, it'd be nicer to have textbooks for all schools in one location and I have rarely seen that. (And by all I mean all in the area.)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Cool! Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but the City lot next to Sundance on Pearl Street has free parking every Saturday (I park there every other Saturday when I'm downtown for an appointment). Might be true on Sundays also. The only exception I've noticed is when there is a daytime event at the Arena, they charge a flat fee.

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Chris must've bought a pretty significant Riverbank gift card, going by the way he keeps harping on it.

Sure sounds like it. However, I will agree with him that the way the gift card issue has been handled so far by Deb does not rank up there in the top echelons of great customer service. If I were holding one of those cards I would be feeling like I'd been robbed. :angry:

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Too bad they'll only be open until 6:00 :/

Yeah, that is too bad but I am sure if business supports evening hours...they'll expand.

Opening up at 7:30am is much better than the old place...didn't Riverbank open at 9am?

I'll be sure to get there when the doors open for a latte...

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