As the bar and restaurant scene in Campustown continues to expand with new businesses, the retail sector is shrinking and another business is closing.

Rick Lippard has owned Archie’s Shoe Repair and Sales, 107 Welch Ave., for nearly 20 years and the store itself has been there since 1936.

This December, the store will be closing, leaving Hyland Shoe Repair, 301 Kellogg Ave., as the only shoe repair store in Ames.

“This has been coming for a long time,” Lippard said. “The bars, restaurants and copy places seem to be the only things left down here. It is sad to see it, but it is just the way it is.”

The significant decrease of student traffic has also contributed to slower business.

“When the dorms were open to the south and the buses were not running every five minutes, we used to get some foot traffic and students would stop in,” Lippard said.

Although the dorm traffic in Campustown has decreased in the past years, the opening of new apartment buildings has brought some new pedestrian traffic to the area.

“I live in Campustown and I don’t have a car here,” said Ian Hampson, senior in landscape architecture.

“Archie’s was convenient for me; I had a shoe break and I just had to walk across the street to get it fixed.”

Hampson, however, is not the norm — most people do not think to get their shoes repaired any more, Lippard said.

“We live in a throwaway society,” he said. “Nothing is made to be repaired. If it breaks, just throw it away. See Wal-Mart for details about that.”

Most, but not all, footwear worn by students is not even reparable, Lippard said.

The closing of Archie’s leaves an empty spot along Welch Avenue that will eventually house a new business. Lippard said he just rents the building and has no idea what the owner has in mind for the building.