Students accustomed to making copies at the Pulse will find a new copy shop has taken its place in the UCen.

The grand opening of FedEx Kinko’s on Sept. 20 marked the end of more than one month of renovations to the store, including new paint and new carpets. Work began on the space shortly after July 15 when the Pulse Copy and Technology Center, which previously occupied the space, lost the bid to renew its seven-year lease. The new FedEx Kinko’s store is run by on-campus staff but is managed by staff at the Goleta Kinko’s, located on Calle Real. Mesa Communications, a phone service company previously located in Isla Vista, shares the leased space with the new store.

The Kinko’s chain, which began on Pardall Road in Isla Vista in 1970, now consists of over 1,200 stores worldwide.

UCen Administration Director Alan Kirby said the Pulse applied to renew its lease in June, but lost in the bidding process to FedEx Kinko’s. Applications to lease the space were assessed using a points system, which evaluated the breadth and quality of the services offered by each applicant, as well as the history of the company in a similar environment.

Kirby said UCen administrators chose FedEx Kinko’s for the space because it excelled in almost every area of the evaluation process.

“They offer a broader range of services, have an excellent track record in this environment and can offer the best return compensation to the UCen,” Kirby said. “They virtually won in every category.”

In addition to its new FedEx shipping center, Goleta Kinko’s manager Troy Brow said that Kinko’s provides a higher quality product than the Pulse with a lower turn-around time.

“We have a lot more as far as digital copies and large-form printing capabilities, such as signs and banners, go,” Brown said. “We can also do large-scale laminations. We basically offer a faster turn-around time with better quality and good prices.”

Kirby said this faster turn-around time was one of the most attractive qualities of FedEx Kinko’s bid.

“One of the reasons we chose Kinko’s is because they have this backup system,” Kirby said. “When people come in with large jobs, like those from campus departments or organizations, the job won’t all be done here. It will be sent to the larger Goleta or Hope Ranch stores. It’s attractive to us because they can have a much faster turn-around time on those jobs, most of the time in one day.”

Assistant UCSB Bookstore Director Pamela Longmire said she is excited by the prospect of working with the new store.

“We do provide readers to campus, so they will definitely be one of our sources,” Longmire said. “The possibility is that we may now have a really good service for the campus, especially with them being in multiple locations.”

While FedEx Kinko’s promises more services than those provided by the Pulse, the store’s operating hours will remain the same – Monday through Friday, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The new FedEx Kinko’s differs from its off-campus counterparts in that it is not open 24 hours a day. Kirby said he doubts this will change.

“We’re flexible with them having different hours than the rest of the UCen, but for right now I don’t think their hours will change,” Kirby said. “We’re not sure if they’ll have the demand to be open 24 hours a day.”