NASHUA – John Koutsos, second-generation owner of downtown Nashua icon Alec’s Shoe Store, said Thursday his recent decision to move the store from downtown to more spacious and accessible quarters off Exit 8 came neither swiftly nor easily.

“Downtown has been great for our business, for our family,” said Koutsos, whose late father, Alexander “Alec” Koutsos, opened the store some 77 years ago in a boxy, 20-foot-wide space adjacent to the West Pearl Street side of today’s three-level shop.

“I love downtown,” he said, adding that the move, although a sound business decision, nevertheless leaves him “with kind of a heavy heart.”

Koutsos, 54, said the move is a necessary step in “laying the groundwork for the next generation” of the family-owned business. It is tentatively scheduled for March, which falls in a slightly slower period between the winter and Christmas rush and the transition to spring and summer merchandise.

He is in the process of acquiring the former Oasis building at 1617 Southwood Drive, a single-story facility with 38,000 square feet on one level plus a small mezzanine mostly for offices.

The location, just off Somerset Parkway and within sight of the east side of the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Somerset Plaza, is surrounded by more than 200 parking spaces – “more than we’ll ever use,” Koutsos said.

Advantages include plenty of room for “a real loading dock … no more getting soaked or freezing unloading trucks,” plus its visibility and ease of access from the Everett Turnpike.

“About a third of our business comes from Massachusetts (residents),” Koutsos said. “This will make it a lot easier for them,” as well as for those coming from the north.

The news of the shop’s pending departure comes about three months after the abrupt closure of Villa Banca, the popular downtown eatery that is scheduled to reopen within weeks as Fratello’s first Nashua location.

The shuttering of Villa Banca capped a string of downtown business closures dating to late 2013. Among them are Cooking Matters, Ikebana Flowers, Saffron Bistro, Studio 99, McKenzie’s bar and grille, Aubuchon hardware and the upscale eatery Unum’s.

Newly named Greater Nashua chamber of Commerce president and CEO Tracy Hatch said that while she’s “obviously sad that we won’t have Alec’s downtown,” she praised Koutsos for a “careful” and thorough acquisition process that left city and downtown officials “with plenty of notice.”

Hatch said the fact that Alec’s grew exponentially from its humble beginnings nearly eight decades ago is a tribute to hard work and careful decisions, but also speaks very well of doing business in downtown Nashua.

“The good thing is that he grew the business so well because he was downtown,” she said of Koutsos. “Now, he’s at the point where he needs a bigger space to continue to grow.”

Koutsos said all of his 18 full-time and handful of part-time employees will continue on at the new location. Given its size, he said, he might eventually need to hire a few more people.

Like Koutsos, the employees will miss working downtown, but they’re also “very excited about this new opportunity. They like progress,” he added.

Perhaps their favorite part of moving, Koutsos said, is leaving the staircases behind.

“I asked them the other day how many times they need to go up and down the stairs each day. Most of them guessed around 100. I thought it would be closer to 50,” Koutsos said.

As for the string of business closures of late, some owners said at the time that their business was negatively affected by the ongoing downtown sidewalk reconstruction project. But Koutsos said he wasn’t one of them.

“That project had no affect on us at all,” he said. Going forward, he added, he’s confident that its completion, along with the opening of the long-awaited Broad Street Parkway, will reinvigorate the area.

“There’s going to be a lot of good things happening downtown,” he said.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.