While the world waits for Borders to announce its next step — as if it had another choice than bankruptcy, and why is it taking so long to realize it? — a publication from the company’s hometown notes that Borders

… ended its fiscal year on Jan. 30 amid dramatically different business fundamentals from previous years.

The corporate value, based on stock price, was $29 million, close to its historic low -and down from $663 million three years earlier. The headcount at the Ann Arbor headquarters totaled less than half the 1,200 who worked there two years earlier. Annual sales, which once topped $4 billion, were trending toward half that.

Yet the physical footprint of the nation’s second-largest bookseller — which operates more than 500 superstores — remained relatively unchanged from peak years …

… As Borders executives make critical decisions for the company’s future, it’s that physical footprint — the stores and the headquarters, one of Ann Arbor largest office buildings — stepping to the forefront of the list of action items.

In her AnnArbor.com report, Paula Gardner says Borders’ stores amount to “more than $1 billion in lease obligations,” and experts say this is the company’s first big concern.

But as if that weren’t bad enough for Borders, or for book culture in America, Gardner observes something even more chilling — decisions made by Borders about its real estate holdings will, in turn, “create a ripple effect across hundreds of communities in the U.S.: Closures will yield lost jobs, lost tax payments and lost real estate value.”