The Iowa City/Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau is getting a new and bigger home.

The group will move from its offices at 408 First Ave., in Coralville into the former Country Kitchen restaurant at 900 First Ave., also in Coralville, by Dec. 1, bureau president Josh Schamberger said.

The move will nearly double the organization's office space from about 2,200-square-feet at its current home - a little smaller than a tennis court - to nearly 4,200-square-feet, or slightly smaller than a basketball court.

"We have been very short of office space," Schamberger said.

The offices will provide the bureau high profile visibility with the new location near Interstate 80, Schamberger said. The bureau has plans to erect a reader board and sign to beckon drivers to the area's new welcome center.

"It'll be the very first sign people will see coming off the Interstate," he said.

The group also plans to buy several bicycles to rent to visitors for use on the area's bike trails. With that and the proximity to the highway, Schamberger said he expects visitors to the center to triple from the annual rate of 15,000 people.

"There is not a better location to locate a welcome center," he said. "It puts us accessible to all the bike trails in Iowa City."

Schamberger said the decision on where to relocate the bureau was not based on the planned Iowa Environmental/Education Project, which is expected to be built at the corner of First Avenue and Interstate 80. He said the need for space and the new building's location pushed the decision.

The building has been available since the beginning of the year, he said, when Country Kitchen closed. The city of Coralville paid $775,000 for the building. About $200,000 will be spent by the visitor's bureau on renovating the 25-year-old building into office space, Schamberger said.

"The entire inside needs to be gutted," he said. "The parking lot is in terrible shape."