HBJ Bookstore, One of San Diego’s Largest, Will Close in January

The Harcourt Brace Jovanovich bookstore, a downtown San Diego fixture since 1978, will close at the end of January, but officials at the publisher’s new parent firm denied reports Monday that HBJ’s publishing operations will be moved out of San Diego.

The HBJ bookstore, one of the city’s largest with 45,000 titles, is being shut in a cost-cutting move, assistant manager Tam Schacht said. The bookstore has been losing money for some years, she said, but former HBJ Chairman William Jovanovich wanted the store kept open to showcase new HBJ books and to “maintain contact with the public.”

Three HBJ publishing units--Academic Press, the trade group and professional publishing --employ 325 editors and support staff in San Diego, mostly in a downtown building whose ground floor houses the bookstore. All three units will remain in San Diego for the indefinite future, said Peter Farwell, a spokesman for General Cinema, which acquired HBJ.

In fact, Reubin Pfeffer, the head of HBJ’s trade division, which includes adult and children’s books, recently was moved to San Diego from New York, said Farwell.

The Academic Press publishes text and scientific books while the professional group publishes books and journals for accounting, legal professions and others.

The bookstore’s fate has been in doubt since November, 1991, when debt-laden Harcourt Brace Jovanovich was acquired by General Cinema of Chestnut Hill, Mass., for $1.5 billion.

Once a strong San Diego corporate presence by virtue of its publishing operations and its ownership of the Sea World amusement park chain, HBJ had, by the time of General Cinema’s acquisition, sold its four Sea Worlds and two other parks to Anheuser-Busch in a bid to raise cash and remain independent.

But the publishing concern remained swamped in junk bond debt taken on in 1987 to finance a corporate restructuring designed to repel a takeover attempt by the late British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell.

Ever since General Cinema’s acquisition, rumors have swirled among HBJ staffers here about the possibility of a relocation of San Diego operations. But Farwell said a sweeping study of HBJ operations completed by General Cinema this summer convinced it to keep the San Diego operation here.

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich now is a subsidiary of General Cinema, a publicly traded company with $3.6 billion in revenues. Contrary to its name, the company’s main business now is publishing through its HBJ and W.B. Saunders units. Its 1,400-screen General Cinema theater chain provides about $400 million in annual revenue, Farwell said.