Tattered Cover Opens in Denver Suburb

Meeting its first major deadline, the new Highlands Ranch Town Center Tattered Cover store opened on Monday, November 15, exactly as was planned over a year ago. The grand opening will be held on November 20 and 21, complete with ribbon cutting, music, free coffee, Curious George, Peter Rabbit, and prizes. The grand prize is a $250 shopping spree at the new store. The Highlands Ranch store is the third in the Tattered Cover domain, which includes the original Cherry Creek location and a store in Lower Downtown Denver (LoDo).

At 21,754 square feet and nearly 100,000 titles, the Highlands Ranch store is almost equivalent in size to Tattered Cover's LoDo store, but will appeal to a more suburban, family-oriented demographic. The children's section will be twice as large, and a large number of sports and religion titles will be stocked.

Tattered Cover at Highlands Ranch Town Center.

"The store is in a brand new development, Highlands Ranch; it's a strip mall with very large stores, but it has been conceived with a town center concept," Neil Strandburg, Tattered Cover manager of operations, told BTW. "It has a clock tower, public space, parks, and residential units. Bed, Bath, & Beyond just opened; Home Depot is here. There is 200,000 square feet of retail space. The store materialized in a surprisingly brief period of time. Prairie dogs were here last January … and now this."

Tattered Cover owner Joyce Meskis had been scouting out several locations for a new store, but was drawn to the Highlands Ranch Town Center because many customers had requested a south metro location. The new store is near a 'park and ride' location so the cafe and newsstand open at 6:00 a.m., while the bookstore opens at 9:00 a.m.

Strandburg noted that the store's soft opening enabled the staff to test all of its systems and gave new staff a chance to become familiar with store operations. "It requires 40 people to help us run the Ranch, and we hired up exactly what we needed," he said.

Competing with large chains and online sales has been Tattered Cover's lot for a good part of its 30 years. "There is always a risk in any expansion," Meskis recently told the Denver Post, "but there also is growth potential out there."

With the opening of the new location, Tattered Cover is instituting a first-time ever discount program. "We have introduced the 'TC 25' -- 25 percent off a selection of 25 titles that will appeal to our range of readers. They will all be newly released hardcovers," said Standburg. "We want to keep it fresh and will change it over periodically."

One of the greatest challenges the store's owner and management faced was to "create the Tattered Cover ambience in a big box," Strandburg continued. "As independents, we didn't have a lot of money to do that so a variety of techniques were used." said Strandburg. Standard industrial lights were used on the 30-foot ceilings, but then schoolhouse lights that extended well below were added. Colors were carefully selected to lend a homey atmosphere to the large space and to connect the new store with color elements in the other two stores. And, according to Strandburg, Meskis had long been scouring the area for old furniture, "and the place is chockfull of great antique furniture, recliners, and couches that are also functional."

For more about the new Tattered Cover Book Store in Highlands Ranch, including photos, click here. --Nomi Schwartz