After 21 years on the corner of Whyte Avenue and 105 Street, Chapters will be shutting down in January.

This high profile location won’t be vacant for long though; Winners will be moving in right after its renovated.

We bought countless books at that store over the years, so it will be sad to see it go. But businesses come and go, and Winners will bring a new dynamic to an area that is already seeing a considerable amount of change.

There’s also a cruel sense of irony here. Amazon (which is opening a 1 million square foot facility in the spring) has undoubtedly put pressure on book stores, and Chapters was clearly not immune to those effects. Going forward, Winners will start putting similar pressure on many of the small and independent retailers in the area. Some businesses will benefit from the pedestrian traffic that Winners will attract, while others will have to make adjustments.

Here are a few interesting facts on the property itself:

The building is called Plaza 82, and looking at it from the street you might not realize it consists of over 50,000 square feet of retail and office space. The building was purchased in 2007 for $10.65M (the owners occupy the 4th floor);

Chapters / Winners space is roughly 24,000 square feet, consisting of 8,000 on the main floor and 14,000 square feet on the second floor.

A local video game studio will also be moving into 12,000 square feet on the 3rd floor.

Data from CoStar indicates there are over 40,000 people living within a 2 km radius of the building, with projections for that number to grow to 52,000 in the next 10 years.

Whyte Avenue (and Old Strathcona in general) is certainly changing. What do you think it will look like in 20 years?