Closing time is near for the Barnes & Noble bookstore in St. Paul’s Highland Park, which for 20 years has been a popular spot to browse the shelves and greet the neighbors.

“That’ll be a huge loss for the neighborhood,” said Maryann McGuinn, a frequent customer and a retiree. “We’re from Mac-Groveland, and Mac-Groveland and Highland Park will miss it terribly.”

The Highland store will close its doors for the last time Wednesday. But maybe — just maybe — a new and different Barnes & Noble bookstore could reappear in the neighborhood someday.

On Monday, David Deason, Barnes & Noble’s vice president of development, confirmed the neighborhood chatter: that the Highland Park store was performing well, but its lease ran out and wasn’t renewed.

“Ultimately, it really wasn’t our decision,” Deason said. “We worked diligently to extend the lease. … This property owner decided to go in a different direction.”

So would Barnes & Noble consider opening another store in Highland Park?

“Yeah, potentially,” Deason said. “We are diligently working on a new store offering. … There’s nothing immediate. In fact, I can honestly tell you, we have not selected any locations for a new store offering, but we’ll probably look to that by the middle of 2015.”

That possibility is a glimmer of hope for book lovers who have reacted to the store’s closing with sadness and, in a few cases, tears.

“We’ve gotten a ton of emails and calls about it,” said St. Paul City Council member Chris Tolbert. “I think people are mostly upset — upset might be too strong of a word — about the loss of a bookstore. We’re a fairly highly educated, literate population, and people enjoy going to the bookstore.”

Yet at the same time, Tolbert added, “There’s an understanding that how people get books is changing, with the Kindle and Amazon and the Internet. I still buy real books, but I’m probably one of the few people my age (32) who still does that.”

Deason, the Barnes & Noble executive, pushes back against the storyline of the dying bookseller.

“The book business is actually pretty robust,” he said. “We’re sort of the last national book retailer out there, and we’re running 650-odd stores, and for the most part, they’re all rewarding.”

So while Barnes & Noble is closing some locations, including its Apple Valley store (which also will close Wednesday), it is opening others. Those next-generation stores will have expanded food and beverage offerings as well as books, Deason said.

Next year, when the company discusses where to open new stores, “St. Paul will definitely be one of those areas” under consideration, Deason said.

After Barnes & Noble vacates the space at Ford Parkway and Cleveland Avenue owned by Exeter Realty, that space won’t stay empty for long.

In July, Target plans to open its smallest-ever store on the site, a prototype it calls TargetExpress.

At 17,000 square feet, the new TargetExpress will be one-tenth the size of the Midway SuperTarget on University Avenue.

TargetExpress is the company’s latest experiment with different formats as it courts urban shoppers who are fond of Target but don’t want to drive miles to a superstore.

Target opened its first TargetExpress store over the summer in the Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis. The Highland store will be its second, and Target plans to tailor the assortment to the neighborhood, although it won’t discuss specifics yet.

“One of the most interesting things with this concept is, because it is so small, we’re able to be really, really flexible, and we can test and learn,” said Erika Winkels, a Target spokeswoman. “We’re continuing to do that with Dinkytown.”

Early reports from Dinkytown residents suggest TargetExpress has been a hit, drawing crowds of students from the University of Minnesota.

“We are really, really pleased with results and the guest feedback,” Winkels said. “Grocery has been very strong and guests really love the grab-and-go assortment. … Also the tech area, mobile phones.”

Dave Brennan, a retail specialist at the University of St. Thomas, isn’t surprised the Highland Park area also appeals to Minneapolis-based Target. But he wonders why Target didn’t wait to build a larger store when the Ford Plant site is redeveloped.

“That would have served that very, very broad area south of Summit Avenue,” Brennan said. “There just isn’t a whole lot of retail in that area, and Target doesn’t have any representation in that area. They’ve decided to go with their Express concept, which is a little bit of a surprise to me.”

Tolbert suggests one possible reason.

“A final decision is yet to be made, but I don’t think there’s an appetite from neighbors and policymakers to have a big-box store there,” the council member said. “The traditional Target, where you have a sea of parking lots and then a big box, I haven’t heard anyone who wants that.”

But Tolbert appreciates that Target is experimenting with new formats and wonders if that will open an opportunity down the road.

“The cool thing that Target is doing is, they’re adapting their concepts and trying new things. … So it doesn’t mean that Target won’t be part of the Ford Plant, potentially. But that’s a decision that’s 1 0 years away.”

When the new TargetExpress opens in Highland in the summer, it will be highly visible at the intersection of two busy avenues and flanked by existing Chipotle and Starbucks outlets. It also will compound the challenges of a parking lot known for being cramped and tricky.

“It’s very difficult — I’ve been in it,” Brennan said. “You’ve got cars going every which direction, plus you’ve got cars backing out. With a store like that, it’s going to have a lot of traffic.”

Target hasn’t said whether it will try to reconfigure the parking lot, but even if it wanted to, there isn’t much room to make big changes.

Brennan said the traffic patterns of a bookstore will differ from those of a TargetExpress location that has a pharmacy, some groceries and a lot of household essentials.

“People who go to a bookstore loiter for a while,” Brennan said. “People won’t be in the TargetExpress as long. You’ll have more turnover0; I would estimate two or three times the number.”

Tom Webb can be reached at 651-228-5428. Follow him at twitter.com/TomWebbMN.