Marking a significant turnaround, national retailer plans to open more than 60 stores this year.

Bookstore Barnes & Noble will open 57 stores in the U.S. and, with the Waterstones brand, 12 in the UK in 2025, RetailTouchpoints.com reported. Managing Director James Daunt said the chain is coming off a “really significant expansion” in 2024 and plans to “do that or more in 2025.”

“(Barnes & Noble) is experiencing strong sales in its existing stores and has been opening many new stores after more than 15 years of declining store numbers,” the company said in a statement to The Street. “In 2024, Barnes & Noble opened more new bookstores in a single year than it had in the whole decade from 2009 to 2019. (It) is enjoying a period of tremendous growth as the strategy to hand control of each bookstore to its local booksellers has proven so successful.”

The Street reported Barnes & Noble opened eight stores in 2021, 15 in 2022, 30 in 2023 and 57 in 2024. The chain hasn’t announced locations for the new stores but plans to concentrate on high-rent and high-foot-traffic areas like Georgetown, in Washington, D.C.

Barnes & Noble operates about 600 bookstores in the U.S.