 |
|
| Ken Sanders | |
Ken Sanders Books, an antiquarian bookshop selling rare and used books along with a smattering of new titles, will reopen next year in a space located in The Leonardo, a science-and-technology museum in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Sanders, who started running a pop-up location in The Leonardo in February, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the former pop-up area will be where he displays new books. That space is on the museum's ground floor and will include a children's book section, which Sanders has never had in his store before. The store's used books section will be found in the museum's basement, while the rare books will be in a sub-basement reading room the museum calls "The Kiva."
The new books space will blend in with The Leonardo's cafe and gift shop and will have ample space for everything from children's storytime sessions to author signings and book launches. Sanders noted that the museum has a state liquor license, which he called its "best-kept secret."
The Salt Lake City council approved a resolution allowing The Leonardo to sublet space to private businesses, so long as those businesses "fulfill a public purpose" and have a "direction connection to The Leonardo's mission and programming plan." Museum board member Lisa Davis told the Tribune that part of The Leonardo's mandate is to "make Liberty Square a very active, dynamic, community-oriented space."
In the pre-Covid years, the museum saw some 170,000 visitors per year, who will now be "walking right past" Sanders's bookstore. He had been looking for a new, affordable location since 2014, when a real estate development company purchased his building. In January 2020 he warned he would likely have to close given how high the rents in downtown Salt Lake City had become.
During the pandemic his former landlord offered him a six month-delay on rent, and he received around $45,000 in forgivable loans along with a $20,000 loan from the city. This summer he launched a GoFundMe campaign to help save his bookstore, which has risen more than $160,000 so far.
Sanders called the response to the campaign "a mandate, if you will, that they want me to keep doing this."