Bookstore on the brink in Oakland’s revitalized downtown

Luan Stauss hummed along to “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and other songs playing on a Pandora station as she prepared to open her Laurel Book Store on Monday morning in downtown Oakland.

She sighed after counting the disappointing number of receipts from a weekend event featuring an author.

“Every month that we don’t make enough, I have to make a decision about who has to wait” to be paid, said Stauss, whose store rent is $6,300 per month. “I have to look at my options at this point, and if I can’t catch up and get this stuff paid off, they probably won’t extend me much of a lease.”

Three years ago, Stauss moved her bookstore from Oakland’s Laurel district near the Oakland hills to downtown Oakland, expecting that business would boom. These days, if you’re walking down Broadway, you can’t miss the big, block letters — B-O-O-K-S — in the ground-floor windows of her shop in the Lionel J. Wilson Building. Built in 1907, it’s a smaller version of the wedge-shaped Flatiron Building in New York City.

Oakland’s much-touted revitalization of downtown is what lured her. Stauss wanted to offer more books and host more author events. But while the bars and restaurants in the area bustle, Stauss, like other daytime retailers, struggles. Foot Locker, the sneaker store, recently closed, and several other stores have come and gone since Stauss moved in.

She discovered that downtown Oakland near City Hall isn’t yet an area where people stroll and browse.

Stauss’ lease is up at the end of the month, and last week she sent a plea to the store’s email list. She needs to raise $30,000 to stay open.

Meanwhile, it’s not clear what Oakland city officials can do to fight the effect of one-click online shopping, perhaps the biggest enemy of stores like Stauss’. The city has given financial breaks to small businesses, but now they need some creativity to bring customers to downtown Oakland during the day.

When Stauss moved in, her landlord, the city of Oakland, gave her six months rent-free. The city also agreed to match up to $50,000 in capital improvements. With the tens of thousands of employees who come to downtown Oakland to work at companies such as Pandora, combined with the nearby hotels and proximity to BART, Stauss expected to have a bonanza of curious shoppers walking through her door.

But that hasn’t happened. And some of the people who do walk in just ask for directions to government buildings and city landmarks.

Independent book shops like Laurel Book Store, in business for 16 years, were once threatened by strip mall anchors Barnes & Noble and Borders. But that was before Amazon — which sells e-books and audiobooks and just about everything else — became the Big Bad Wolf in the publishing industry. Stauss estimates she needs about 65 paying customers a day to survive.

I still buy paperbacks to read on BART during my commute. I also buy quirky birthday and holiday cards at my neighborhood bookstores. I realize I’m spoiled, because there are two bookstores within several hundred feet of my front door in north Oakland.

The bookstores in my neighborhood — Pegasus and Diesel, both on College Avenue — have something in common with the cluster of bookstores less than 2 miles away on Piedmont Avenue, and it’s exactly what Laurel Book Store lacks: heavy foot traffic.

People come to Piedmont and College avenues to eat, drink and shop, and even if they’re not looking for books, bookstores are a place to stop along the way.

For 25 years, the bookstore Black Swan has been on Piedmont Avenue, east of downtown. It’s next to Fentons Creamery, the popular ice cream shop that had a line wrapped around the block on Sunday for $1.23 black-and-tan sundaes to celebrate its 123rd birthday. Ten years ago, Black Swan owner Bonnie Lucas added Mexican folk art, African masks, sculptures and vintage cowboy boots to her inventory.

“Art and collectibles keep me going,” she told me. “Some of my regular customers don’t buy books at all.”

While Black Swan thrives in an Oakland neighborhood where people live and visit, Laurel Book Store is barely holding on in “revitalized” downtown. Stauss, who sells audiobooks and e-books online, will ship items if customers don’t want to travel to the store on BART or circle Broadway looking for a scarce parking space. But until downtown becomes a walking shopping district, it will be hard for Stauss to stay afloat.

“There’s a lot more downtown than people think there is,” Stauss said. “There’s an education process that’s not happening. There’s still the perception that it’s dangerous here.”

She doesn’t get satisfaction from knowing otherwise.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr