Wallace's College Bookstores has signed a 10-year agreement to manage the Yale Co-op store as well as the Yale Medical School Bookstore. The deal, which took effect December 28, is the first that will involve the implementation of Wallace's FlexSmart College Store concept, employing such features as a flexible design and management services for individual stores.
According to Wallace's president, Steve Stevens, Wallace's will be able to "create 30% more retail space for textbooks, trade books and apparel, as circumstances dictate" under the FlexSmart design. The store will be "fun, attractive and service oriented," Stevens added.
Wallace's anticipates no disruptions in service when the company begins to renovate the co-op early in 1999. Wallace's currently owns and operates more than 76 bookstores, and a company spokesperson said Wallace's expects that all new management agreements with college stores will "include some, if not all, of the FlexSmart concept."
The Yale Co-op moved to a new location in New Haven, Conn., in September 1997, after the university chose to rent the space occupied by the store to Barnes &Noble College Bookstores (Bookselling, Jan. 12, 1997).
