A new WKU Store is set to open sometime between June 15 and July 1 of this summer according to Gary Meszaros, WKU’s assistant vice president of business and auxiliary services.

The new store will be located at Stadium Park Plaza in downtown Bowling Green and it will be in conjunction with a new Starbucks coffee shop.

The new Starbucks is set to open in the in the next couple of days, with the new WKU Store following in a few weeks, Meszaros said.

“We are going to be able to open the two stores separately,” Meszaros said. “The Starbucks will be opening soon, although they still have to go through the health department’s approval and things like that first, but the goal is May 25.”

As previously reported by the College Heights Herald, the WKU Store would operate as the franchisee of the Starbucks inside.

Meszaros said that the reasons the WKU Store is opening later than Starbucks is that the university is still trying to hire a manager and more construction needs to be finished, among other objectives.

With a change of scenery for the WKU Store, the university will have new plans for the former satellite bookstore building on Nashville Road.

Meszaros said that the university would take back the site and try to lease the space out to someone not related to WKU so that the university could still make some revenue on the lease.

While the new store at Stadium Park Plaza will sell WKU merchandise, there will be several differences between it and the old Nashville Road store.

“The new store is going to have more student products, as the old one didn’t have any student-made products,” Meszaros said. “Things made by the art students and photojournalism students and anything made by students on campus will be available for them to sell at our store.”

The store will work on a consignment process with the students as they will set their price and receive the majority of the money while the university will also make a profit on the sale.

“We would put the item up for sale for about 30 days, and if it doesn’t sell they have to take it back down,” Meszaros said. “We would take it down and give it back to them. But they set the price and we keep 25 percent.”

“If they wanted to earn a $100 on a painting they would sell it for a $125 and we keep $25 and they would keep the $100,” Meszaros said.

Another difference between the old store and the new one will be that the new store will be selling Hot Rods merchandise.

Meszaros also added that the new store would not be selling any textbooks or school supplies as the new store will be focused on the community in Bowling Green.

However, not everyone in the community is pleased with the new location of Starbucks. Tanner Leigh, Stanford, Ky. senior, is not happy with the fact that the well-known coffee shop will be just a couple of blocks down the street from Spencer’s Coffee Shop. 

“I think that it doesn’t have to be down there because Spencer’s is already down there,” Leigh said. “Spencer’s is a local store and I feel like it is important for us to support our locally owned businesses, and I like Spencer’s a lot. I think that Starbucks is unnecessary down there.”