Barnes & Noble bookstore officially opened its second Stamford location Wednesday, cutting the ribbon on a brand-new 25,000-square-foot store in the north part of the city.

"I've been waiting for it to open for quite a while," said Chris Goane, who lives nearby. "I'm excited to have a bookstore in the neighborhood."

The new store is in the corner of the High Ridge Shopping Center, in a space that used to be a DSW.

Store manager Ray Fitzgerald tells News 12 the company believes it is both close enough to other towns, like New Canaan, Darien, Greenwich, Wesport and Norwalk, while also being far enough away from the other Stamford location in the Town Center mall to get good business.

"It is a super busy area," agreed Amy Baker, who lives five minutes away.

"There hasn't been a bookstore around here since Borders, where Trader Joe's used to be - not to date myself, but it had to have been at least 20 years ago," added Marissa Intrieri, another excited neighbor.

Still, Fitzgerald says in the era of online shopping, convivence alone is not enough, and "what it comes down to is the experience."

That means the store has a full cafe, plans to host events activities for different ages and also has plenty of chairs, where customers are invited to spend as much time reading or hanging out as they want.

"If we're doing our jobs right, we're making connections with our customers, we're making great recommendations," said Fitzgerald. 'You get to smell the coffee being brewed, you get to interact with people, it's really a gathering place as well."

And while it is a national chain, Barnes & Noble's CEO James Daunt told News 12 during a March edition of Conversation Connecticut, that the company has made supporting local a focus.

"I know that if you give the individual bookstores their own autonomy, they will produce some lovely, lovely things, so what we've done is literally step back and said inside the stores, you do all the book selling," he said.

With special tables for Connecticut authors around the store, Fitzgerald says they have run with that concept, and "can really tailor to the community, tailor to what our customers are looking for."

The new store is open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays.