Porter Square Books, which has become an important outpost of literary life in Greater Boston in the past decade, has put itself up for sale.
The four owners of the Cambridge store said that their business is healthy but that with most of the group being around retirement age it seemed like the right time to begin looking for a successor.
Carol Stoltz, store president, said Tuesday that she and co-owners Dale Sczceblowski, who serves as general manager, Jane Dawson, who is a floor manager and oversees personnel, and Jane Jacobs, a buyer, have worked hard to make the store a community institution, sponsoring author readings and book events almost daily. And they want to ensure that any new owners will continue their work and that store customers will experience no jarring changes after the sale.
“We are very serious about keeping Porter Square Books just as it is,’’ said Stoltz, who also works as a book buyer. In fact, she said, most of the owners would like to continue working at the store through any transition and perhaps even beyond.
The 4,500-square-foot store was opened in 2004 after a group of staffers from the Concord Bookshop got together and decided to try to make a go of it on their own in Cambridge.
Porter Square Books has hired Paul Siegenthaler of Ridge Hill Partners, a Needham a boutique merger and acquisition intermediary firm, to help with the transaction. Ridge Hill helped broker the sales of New England Mobile Book Fair, Harvard Book Store, and Wellesley Booksmith.