Moving out of the Quadrangle may become easier for Penn students this year because a UPS store is moving to 3720 Spruce St.
The store's owner, Bill Anderson, said that he hopes the store will open by Monday, moving from its present location at 3741 Walnut St.
A Cingular Wireless store will move into the UPS's former location this spring or early summer, Facilities and Real Estate Services spokesman Tony Sorrentino said.
Anderson said that the new store, which will replace Dolby's, a medical supplies store, will be larger and offer a broader range of services.
In addition to full shipping and packaging services, the store will offer full- and self-service copying as well as faxing, laminating and binding services. The store will sell office supplies and packing and moving materials, Anderson said.
He added that when his Walnut Street lease expired this year, the University decided not to renew it and instead offered him the Spruce Street location.
Sorrentino said the University's decision to move the store was based on a retail strategy that aims to provide a diverse range of services in each area of campus.
"We think that the 3700 block of Spruce has a nice mixture of food stores but could use additional services," Sorrentino said. "It's really smart to put a UPS store near both the hospital and the Quad -- there will be a lot of customers there."
Anderson agreed that the store's new location offers several benefits.
"We're very excited about this move," he said. "We think it will be quite an advantage for the students -- we're much closer to the center of gravity of the campus. While I would rather have stayed where I had been for the past 10 years, this is a good location and a good opportunity."
Anderson added that he has been getting positive feedback about the move from students who live in the Quad and in the high rises.
College freshman and Quad resident Dean Tye was excited to hear about the UPS store opening.
"This will be convenient for shipping things," he said. "The closer [the store] is, the easier. For people outside the area, it will definitely make it easier to ship things for move-in and move-out."
Tye added that the proximity of the faxing and copying services that the store will provide will be "a big help" for students in the Quad.
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