Capital Hill Mall bookstore closes its doors

One of the city's longer-tenured chain stores is gone, after WaldenBooks in the Capital Hill Mall shuttered for good on the 13th. The store opened in August 1984.

The bookstore was one of many in the company closed across the country by the Michigan-based Borders Group, which owns WaldenBooks. It was the only closure in Montana, though, according to public relations specialist Holly Stein.

"A lot of the WaldenBooks stores have been in existence for quite some time, and their leases are starting to expire," Stein said. "If it's in a location that's not economically viable, you make the decision to close the store."

The company's Web site shows remaining Borders stores in Billings, Bozeman and Kalispell; a Borders Express in Kalispell; and WaldenBooks in Great Falls and Missoula.

The closure leaves Hastings and Montana Book Company as the city's two remaining primary booksellers. Barnes and Noble has long been rumored to be interested, and the name once surfaced in conjunction with stores planned in the Skyway Regional Shopping Center around Home Depot, though nothing has been confirmed there.

That's the Ticket: Last night's multistate Powerball lottery drawing was for more than $200 million, meaning lengthening lines at ticket vendors across town.

Can you guess the top five volume sellers of lottery tickets in the Helena area? Answer at the bottom of the column.

Selling Downtown: Tourism consultant Roger Brooks had several interesting observations at this week's Downtown Visioning Partnership seminar that didn't make it into the news story. Among them:

n Showing slides of "Last Chance Gulch/Cedar Street" and "Euclid/Lyndale" street signs: "Why can't you just give me one street name?"

n On the name of downtown's main thoroughfare: "I would never call a downtown a gulch, no offense. 'Gulch' is right down there with 'ditch.'"

n On using tourism to grow other industries: "A tourism-friendly city will spawn non-tourism industries," because people are more likely to have a favorable impression when they first visit the city, then decide to move and work here.

Brooks broke tourism into three segments -- visits to friends and family, business travel and leisure travel -- and said that while the first two are relatively static, the leisure travel segment is where the real growth opportunities lie.

Brooks' presentation will be re-broadcast by Helena Civic Television, today at 6 p.m. and again tomorrow evening at 7.

That's the Ticket, answer: According to the Montana Lottery, the top five sellers of lottery tickets in the Helena area are Van's Thriftway, Safeway, Green Meadow Market, Bob's Valley Market and Friendly's Sinclair.

Email your Open for Business ideas to john.harrington@helenair.com.