Waving in the icy winds of west Ames, students can see the banners for Alpha Copies’ new store.

After almost eight years doing business in Campustown, owner John Crawford stated that the lease was up, and they were looking for a nicer building.

“We looked at places like T Galaxy and this one, and this was the most logical choice,” Crawford said.

Another big reason for the move was square footage. The old store across the street from the Memorial Union was 2,400 square feet while the new store is 4,800.

“When I went there, it did feel a little cramped,” senior Joe Couillard said. “But, [it was] not enough that it would bother me.”

When Couillard visited the store, he was by himself, not in a group. Crawford plans to make the new location more group friendly.

With all this extra room, Crawford plans to incorporate a few, new features to bring in new customers.

Differences in the shops include introducing a fourth copy lane compared to the cramped three at the old store, six-foot cubicles with computers instead of the current four-foot cubicles, and a new area for hanging more apparel.

One of the new features that Crawford is excited about includes the use of a conference room towards the back of the store.

“We’re going to offer it like a hotel. [It will be] where you just check and see if the inventory is available. Use it. Just slot your name in. When it’s done, it’s done,” Crawford said.

Alpha Copies prides itself on being able to support group activities, and the owner wants to support that cooperative atmosphere. The conference room can fit 15 people comfortably.

Another feature with the conference room new to Alpha Copies is interactive, self-serve screen printing. Crawford reported they can do the screen printing for a fee for you, or you can learn how to do it yourself.

They will not only offer a discount, but they will teach you how to operate the machine as well.

“We’ll give you the conference room if you want to wheel it in here and have some privacy during your time. It should turn out really good,” Crawford said.

Once football season hits, Crawford would also like to take advantage of all the new space available outside of the store as well.

“We’ll do our own tailgate and put up a tent. [We will also] put boxes of apparel out there,” Crawford explained.

For now, there won’t be any big promotions or events happening according to the owner. The colder months aren’t very good for trying to sell apparel, so the shop has projected to have its ribbon cutting and featuring of ISU apparel sometime after Spring Break.

“We’re not going to do a grand opening right away; we’re going to do that a little bit later once we get our feet under us in our new location. We’re hoping to open up a pretty tight technology turnaround time,” Crawford stated.

“We’ll do the offerings probably in the warmer months around Spring Break and do a ribbon cutting. We’ll also do an offering of Iowa State apparel; we’re in the middle of trying to figure out the branding of that.”

The new store will be located at 3615 Lincoln Way, across the street from West Hy-Vee. The old store will be closing Thursday, and the new one will open the next day, Friday morning.