Borders expects to close all stores nationwide

Looks as if the bookseller Borders will go from hard times to extinction.

The struggling company, which filed for bankruptcy five months ago, announced it is now preparing to shutter all its remaining 399 stores, including six on Long Island. The chain employs 10,700 people nationwide.

The company had hoped to attract a bidder that would continue to operate the business. Instead it will ask a bankruptcy judge Thursday to approve its previously announced plan to sell its assets to a liquidation firm after laboring under crushing debt and sluggishness to adapt to a rapidly changing industry.

"Following the best efforts of all parties, we are saddened by this development," said Borders Group president Mike Edwards in a statement.

The liquidation could begin as early as Friday and continue through the end of September, the company said. Borders has stores in Bohemia, Farmingdale, Riverhead, Stony Brook and Syosset. It also has a Borders' Express in the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream. The liquidation would also include Waldenbooks and Borders' airport stores, the company said.

DJM Realty, a Melville company, will oversee the sale of the leases, said Andy Graiser, the company's co-president and chief executive. He expects strong demand for the existing retail space because the economic slowdown has curbed interest in building new locations.

On Feb. 16, the 40-year-old chain announced that it was filing for bankruptcy and closing nearly 200 of its then 642 stores. The earlier closings included the Westbury and Commack stores.

So what will the Borders shutdown mean for No. 1 bookseller Barnes & Noble?

Bill Kavaler, a securities analyst at Oscar Gruss & Son Inc. in Manhattan who follows Barnes & Noble, expects the Borders liquidation sales to depress prices for things like notebooks and calendars and cut Barnes & Noble revenue in the current quarter as a result.

"But it will be over quickly," he said.

Long-term, he doesn't see Barnes & Noble benefiting because "by the time a company is in bankruptcy, it is largely irrelevant to most of its competitors."

What does the chain's closing mean for independent bookstores? Said Oren Teicher, chief executive of the Tarrytown, N.Y.-based American Booksellers Association, with 1,500 independent bookseller members, "For our constituents who have weathered some difficult storms over the years, we're still here."

East Meadow resident Pat McGovern, who was shopping with her husband, Bud, Tuesday at the Borders in Farmingdale, said they are longtime customers and will lament its closing. "It was a nice place to come and spend an afternoon browsing," said Pat McGovern, 59.

Deborah Elliott, 59, of Wheatley Heights, said she was unclear on what the future was for her $200 Kobo e-book reader she bought at the Farmingdale location late last year. A self-described "computer illiterate," she went to the store once a month for the staff's help in uploading inspirational e-books.

"You spend all of this money and now it's going to be of no use," she said. Kobo, an independent company, said users could move Borders e-books to a Kobo account.

With Patricia Kitchen