Tacoma is getting a new independent bookstore. Here’s when Grit City Books will open
Tacoma, you’re set to get a new bookstore next year.
Plans were filed in November with the City of Tacoma for Grit City Books on Sixth Avenue. It will be in part of the commercial space at Sixth & Alder Apartments.
Grit City Books for now is an online operation that launched in November. Co-founders Jeff Hanway, husband Kegan Hanway, and Kaitlin Chandler hope to have the brick-and-mortar version of their store open in the spring.
The three recently were interviewed by The News Tribune about their bookstore plans.
Each of the co-founders graduated from the University of Puget Sound more than a decade ago, though the Hanways didn’t meet Kaitlin until years later when they rented office space at TractionSpace, where she works as director of operations.
Jeff Hanway comes from a business operations and healthcare business development-consulting background. Kegan Hanway’s background is in technology.
“With her retail background, she was the perfect addition to bring her into our ownership group,” Jeff Hanway said.
“I worked in high-end and high-volume retail for 10 years,” Chandler told The News Tribune. “We envision Grit City Books eventually being embedded in the Tacoma community.”
She added that the store aims for a one-of-a-kind experience. “Our goal is to provide a safe space for marginalized communities through our collective love of books, reading, and learning,” she said.
The idea to start an independent bookstore came to them in the middle of the pandemic. Jeff Hanway said they wanted to “support local businesses ... and try to make sure that that money stays in the local community.”
As Kegan Hanway explained: “the idea of this bookstore grew out of our navigating COVID and lockdowns and the realities of working in a corporate environment ... that reevaluation that I think a lot of us went through during COVID ... that there was other stuff we could be doing that might have more value to us, to our community.”
All are avid readers, and Chandler emphasized the importance of reading “to allow you to walk in someone else’s shoes; to understand the world around us and to get a glimpse of what others may be going through.”
“Jeff and Kegan had the original vision for the bookstore,” she noted. “It didn’t take much convincing, really. I was in pretty much immediately. Every Millennial dreams of opening a bookstore or a coffee shop or whatever niche thing they’re passionate about.”
Finding a physical space was a lengthy process.
“We’ve been looking since June,” Jeff Hanway said, “when we really came together and formed the business and said, ‘We’re doing this.’”
“We looked at quite a few different places,” he added. “We first toured the Sixth & Alder space in early September. And then we kind of fell in love with the location. It was the right size (and) gave us a lot of flexibility with it being a brand new space that hadn’t ever been built out before.”
Sixth & Alder site
A group of Seattle-based LLCs representing a family real estate venture purchased Sixth & Alder Apartments last year. Brian Yee helps lead the investment venture.
He told The News Tribune in a recent interview that with Trapper Sushi Co. and the bookstore, the retail space on the ground level is close to being filled.
“My family purchased the building last year in August 2022, so we’re new to the neighborhood,” he said. “And we were taking some time to find the right fit and the right business to come to the building.”
He noted that Sixth Avenue “is a really thriving community of small businesses. ... We’re really hopeful that it will become another attraction for people who come and shop on Sixth Avenue and want to explore it.”
He sees it attracting area customers to the site as well as Sixth & Alder’s residents.
Kegan Hanway noted when meeting with the building owners a few weeks ago for a run-of-the-mill review of their business plan, “I think it was supposed to be a half hour, one-hour meeting. We ended up staying there a few hours.”
Kegan Hanway recalled there were “a lot of questions, and it was a very sort of organic conversation where the excitement was building between all of us.”
Yee says his family shares a love of books and is pleased with the idea of a bookstore at the site. “I come from a family of readers,” he said. “My mother was an English professor ... and from the sound of it, they certainly have a very good business plan.“
Independent bookstore in their style
Jeff Hanway described himself as a “business nerd who loves the ins and outs of operating a business,” but also as someone who is passionate about books.
“I love being able to dive into a topic and a book that’s 300-400 pages and really understand and get into the deep backstories of why things are,” he said. “While fiction can transport you and tell you stories about places and times that you’ve never been and introduce you to characters that you fall in love with ... .”
“We love books and Tacoma and couldn’t think of a better way to share our passion than to open an independent bookstore in the city we call home,” Chandler said.
All of them agreed that the store would reflect their values on inclusiveness. Jeff Hanway sees the store as “where we can do event programming that matches our interests, the community’s interests and bring more foot traffic, but also be more of a dialogue and an event than just a transaction.”
“We want to make sure that we are supporting our LGBTQ-plus community of all ages to make sure that there’s a safe space, a feeling of inclusion,” Kegan Hanway said. “And it’s not just LGBTQ-plus, we’re interested in partnering with local book clubs, author tours, you name it, poetry readings, open mic sessions ... it’s like: ‘What can’t we do?’”
This story was originally published December 4, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
