Despite the failures of other movie rental stores near campus – including Dugout Video just last year – another rental shop is coming to town.

Movie Gallery will open its doors today in Marshall Square Mall, hoping to avoid failure by offering long business hours and rental length.

‘Our real estate office does an enormous amount of research about the area,’ said Jenni Skaug, the media buyer for store.

Other Movie Gallery shops are located on other college campuses, Skaug said, and one would not be opening up near SU if they had not succeeded.

‘This is a five-night rental store,’ she said. ‘Being a five-night store is a pretty big deal.’

Donna Walker, Movie Gallery’s district manager said the store offers competitive prices and a wide variety of movies that will cater to students.

‘We are searching for other movies more geared for the college student,’ Walker said.

The store’s hours will be 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weeknights and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends. Although the store opens today, the grand opening will not occur until the one-month anniversary.

‘We will have a soft opening, and on our 30-day anniversary we will have our grand opening with some fun stuff and special rental rates,’ Walker said.

Movie Gallery is a large retailer with over 2,000 stores throughout the country and into Canada, according to its Web site.

One Click Video, previously the only video rental store near campus, will remain unique, allowing students to rent movies online and have them delivered within minutes.

Matt Bacey, the co-founder of One Click Video and a graduate of SU, said he knew months ago that Movie Gallery was opening, but is confident his store’s delivery style will allow it to deal with the competition.

‘We are hands-down confident with our service,’ Bacey said. ‘We have over 3,000 members that are basically all SU students.’

While some students may enjoy walking into a movie rental store and seeing the entire collection, Bacey said One Click Video’s service is much easier.

‘We are going to keep doing what we are doing,’ Bacey said. ‘We will work even harder this year.’

One Click Video will make some changes to make service better for the customer, Bacey said, but not to combat Movie Gallery. Within the next two weeks, the Web site will be redone and inventory will be increased by 50 percent.

‘The thing I love the most is One Click Video. It’s the best way to go,’ said Kristen Camiel, a sophomore fashion design major. ‘They’ll have it at your door in two seconds.’

Students were supportive of the new rental option, despite any history of past failures by similar businesses.

‘Any small business opportunity for the city is a good opportunity,’ said Justin O’Brien, a senior political science major. ‘If it fails, it fails, but I’d like to see it flourish.’

NEWS EDITOR TERENCE JOHNSON CONTRIBUTED TO THIS STORY

Published on September 9, 2004 at 12:00 pm