The Ivy Bookshop is moving, but the beloved store is not going very far.
In a letter to customers, owner Emma Snyder wrote that she purchased a building at 5928 Falls Road, just south of The Ivy’s longtime home in the Lake Falls Village shopping center just over the city-county line.
“We love this city and are so proud to be a part of it,” she wrote.
Per Snyder, the fall and winter will be spent renovating the 19th-century house, which most recently served as the home of the Divine Life Church, to put in on-site parking and make sure the building is ADA-compliant. The new space is scheduled to open in spring 2020.
The Sun first reported the The Ivy’s move on Monday.
Snyder told the paper that the house is three times as big as the store’s current location, and the extra space will allow for a coffee bar and events space for writing workshops or performances.
It also provides a more stable future.
“Sometimes successful bookstores end up closing down because of the vagaries of the commercial real estate market,” she told The Sun. “When a bookstore owns its own home, it means it’s safe for the long run.”
Late last year Snyder took over The Ivy from Ed and Ann Berlin, who began running it in 2012. The store first opened in 2001.
