Here's a real estate tale playing out across the country, but this version has an increasingly rare storybook finish: A prominent broker and a former San Diego city manager are among customers buying the property housing independent bookstore Warwick's, saving at the last minute a cultural gathering spot in the village of La Jolla, California, for more than a century.

The Warwick's drama shows how even popular independent brick-and-mortar retailers can need outside help, despite creating a distinct sense of place, especially as e-commerce competition slashes sales at U.S. independent bookstores. It also reveals how a sense of place can lure a diverse group of investors to keep the doors open, and what happens when one is a real estate broker.

For the fourth-generation family owners of Warwick's, the closing of an $8.35 million deal for the property about 15 miles outside downtown San Diego avoided what could have been the final chapter for a local retail institution with a history dating back to 1896 in Iowa.

"There were times when we weren't really sure which way this would go,"said Nancy Warwick, owner of the store started by her great-grandfather, William T. Warwick.

Since settling into its current location at 7812 Girard Ave. in the wealthy village of La Jolla in 1921, Warwick’s has become a must-stop for locals, tourists and other regular visitors from around the nation who have second homes in the coastal village. It's also been visited by prominent book authors including Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Gen. Colin Powell.

Through a combination of loyal customers, savvy in-house product buyers and event planners, and a constant diversification beyond books, it’s managed to survive in the face of rising dominance by Amazon and other e-commerce sellers, not to mention a pandemic that hit U.S. small businesses especially hard.

“We have some of the same customers who come in here almost every day,” said Warwick. “Maybe they just had breakfast down the street on Girard, or they’re out walking their dog and always stop in. For some of them, their parents took them here all the time, and now they’re taking their own kids here.”

It’s among the longest continuously running businesses in San Diego, and among the nation’s longest-tenured family-run bookstores. But the La Jolla store’s future was hardly certain when Warwick approached her landlord earlier this year to begin talks on what she thought would be a routine renewal of her lease on the 10,000-square-foot space.

Instead, she learned that the property owner had received an unsolicited cash offer to buy the property, with plans to probably repurpose it to other residential or mixed uses along the lines of projects increasingly being seen in the popular beachside village.

There was no guarantee that Warwick, who co-owns the store with sister Cathy Warwick-O’Neill, would be able to find a similarly solid location at a feasible rent after a potentially expensive relocation. The landlord gave Warwick two weeks to beat the offering price of $8.3 million and buy the building herself, sending her on a quest for experts to help her with options.

She found two in longtime San Diego residents Steve Avoyer, a commercial broker and 40-year customer of Warwick’s who otherwise had no formal business affiliation with the property; and Jack McGrory, a friend of Avoyer’s and a well-established local philanthropist and real estate investor who previously served as San Diego’s city manager and an executive with Major League Baseball’s Padres.

Adding in another 31 investors, including members of the Warwick family, several longtime employees of the bookstore and dozens of avid San Diego customers, the group was able to raise close to $4 million in equity and through McGrory’s efforts secured a $5 million bank loan through River City Bank.

“It was not necessarily the best time to be seeking a loan on a retail building because of what’s happened with the pandemic,” said Avoyer, president of Flocke & Avoyer Commercial Real Estate. “But fortunately our loan was handled by someone who had done prior loans in La Jolla and knew the market very well.”

Just days before the group was set to present its formal offer for the building, the stopwatch on a deal began counting down faster when Warwick learned that a second buyer had approached the owner with a higher cash offer, and that second bidder had no plans to keep current tenant arrangements in place for more than three years.

The La Jolla property owner accepted the Warwick investor group’s bid in late March, and escrow closed ahead of schedule in late April. Under new arrangements, Warwick’s now has a 10-year lease with two five-year renewal options, which should ensure its future well beyond the coming decade.

“There were several very emotional ups and downs with this deal, but we got through them,” said Avoyer. “It all had to happen very fast.”

The real estate dynamics facing even popular venues like Warwick’s reflect what’s long been a precarious climate for independent bookstores. The rise of Amazon and other online booksellers took a heavy toll on brick-and-mortar retailers, initially resulting in a drastic shrinking of store counts even for once stalwart chains such as Barnes & Noble and the now defunct Borders Group.

Smaller independent bookstores saw their U.S. sales drop from $17 billion in 2008 to $10.3 billion in 2018, according to data from research firm Statista and the American Booksellers Association trade group.

Despite the online competition, the location count for independent U.S. bookstores actually rose during most of the past decade, driven by the decline of the national chains and steady visits from loyal book readers who craved a local sense of social connection and community.

There were 1,401 independent operators running 1,651 stores nationwide in 2009, climbing to 1,887 operators running 2,524 locations in 2019. However, the pandemic created some big fallout, with preliminary data showing the number of independent operators dropping to 1,700 in 2020 amid nationwide business closings that hit small retailers particularly hard.

Warwick said her family-run store has been diversifying its merchandise since the late 1990s, to where there’s now about a 50/50 split between books and non-reading materials. The mix has evolved over the decades to include hand-crafted jewelry, office and art supplies, cards, gifts and stationery.

On the book side, Warwick’s buyers and event bookers for decades have remained closely keyed into the New York publishing establishment, helping to make the La Jolla store a crucial Southern California stop on book tours of notable authors, who over the decades have also included former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, chef Julia Child and radio show host Garrison Keillor.

Avoyer, whose San Diego-based brokerage handles leasing and management at more than 100 Southern California retail centers, said the purchase of the La Jolla property to preserve Warwick’s is a reminder of the constant challenges facing smaller, independent brick-and-mortar retailers.

“It’s one of those places that reminds you of what we’ve known for a while now. You can go to chains like Costco to save a few dollars, or you can go to these smaller bookstores and hardware stores that have been part of communities for years or decades,” Avoyer said. “If we don’t pay attention to them, they’re not going to be around much longer.”