April 6, 2010

Expect a For Sale sign on the Main Street Post Office



Wanna buy a Post Office?

Although there's no "For Sale" sign in front of Racine's Main Street Post Office, it appears one will be in the near future, one of the "innovative solutions" the US Postal Service is adopting to cope with a "precipitous" drop in mail volume blamed on the economic downturn and the internet.

Describing the U.S. Postal Service's "most critical period in its history" (...a history that began in 1775 when the Second Continental Congress appointed our first Postmaster General) ... with "unsustainable deficits due to a drastic decline in mail volume and resulting loss of revenue," USPS Milwaukee spokesman Marge Oehlke said, "the Postal Service must seek ways to cut costs and reduce the size of its infrastructure.

One of those ways "involves putting Post Office buildings up for sale, leasing less space in the building from the buyer or in a building nearby, for retail lobby operations, and relocating carriers to a neighboring Post Office with excess workroom floor capacity."

Oehlke calls such a sale "an innovative solution ... to address the need to collapse our infrastructure while continuing to provide customers with excellent mail service and convenience access to retail products and services."


"The Racine Main Post Office located at 603 Main St. is a candidate for this innovative solution. We are looking into the opportunity to sell this building with the stipulation that we can continue to provide retail counter services in the same building or at a new location nearby. If a decision were made to sell the property, we would lease from either the building purchaser or a lessor / owner of another location in the immediate area."

The relocation of carriers took place in February when 23 city and rural mail carriers who worked out of the Main Street facility were transferred to the Four Mile Road postal facility in Caledonia. The Main Street Post Office currently houses only a service counter and postal boxes in its lobby. In addition, the Postal Service is debating whether to eliminate Saturday delivery everywhere.

So how much does the Postal Service want for the building? (I can hear you, flush with your tax refund, asking.)  The price hasn't been set yet. The Postal Service is obtaining an independent appraisal to provide the fair market value of the property with the help of the commercial real estate brokerage firm of Julien J. Studley Inc. Then it will hold a "Racine Town Meeting to provide details concerning the process."
 
The existing Post Office building was built in 1930, at a cost of $320,000. On its front facade is a small, green oxidized plaque from Preservation Racine, right, noting that it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Oehlke notes that the Postal Service "receives no tax dollars for its operating expenses...(and must) rely on the sale of postage and products to generate revenue."

If the sale goes through, she says, "nothing will change from our customer’s perspective. If we can find a buyer who accepts the conditions for the sale, Racine postal customers will continue to purchase stamps, mail and ship packages or rent Post Office boxes in the same building or at another location close to the current Post Office. We will continue to provide excellent mail delivery to residents and businesses."

Postal boxes in the lobby

Historic photos from Gerald Karwowski's Oak Clearing Farm and Museum collection show the Post Office, City Hall and the County Courthouse during their dedication week in 1931 -- what a great year that was for major construction in Racine! -- and, below that, the Post Office during its first two decades of service.


Here's the Post Office in the late 1930s...
And in the 1940s; are those streetcar lines overhead?

20 comments:

  1. What a building, maybe a hotel some day?

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  2. HERITAGE MUSEUM
    HERITAGE MUSEUM
    HERITAGE MUSEUM

    It looks like a traditional museum building.

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  3. ...innovative solution...

    Give me a break. Others have been doing this for 125 years.

    An innovative solution would be to reduce the postal carriers' wages & benefits by 15%.

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  4. Keith.Deschler4/06/2010 5:10 PM

    don't even think about it Brian

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  5. Why not donate the building to the community? Walden Middle/High is looking for a new spot.

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  6. When I was a kid the Racine Post Office interior was beautiful with a classic design. Then they decided to change the floor plan or whatever and destroyed it. Thank God they left the outside alone.

    It's a beautiful building and adds greatly to the street scape.

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  7. We have to go outside the city limits to go to a movie theatre. Looks like soon Racine residents will have to drive out of town to find a real post office.

    Not to worry Kansasville can handle the extra postal load.

    Word on the street is Porter's is moving out to the Dover Mall. Now with the added police force it's far safer than anywhere else in the County. GO! DOVER

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  8. Perfect location for a New WALDEN III!

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  9. Only a matter of time before the Johnson family strips the city of this building/lot too.

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  10. How about some low income housing. It would be a wonderful asset to downtown Racine just like State & Main. Keep up the good work Brian O'connell. Please make sure the developer is from out of the area.

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  11. PETE... are you a downtown basher too? Read your first paragraph:

    adopting to cope with a "precipitous" drop in mail volume blamed on the economic downtown and the internet.

    is this downtown's fault... or is it the downturn? :)

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  12. The PO would be better served if they closed hole-in-the-wall offices like Franksville and Sturtevant and let stores have Post Office sections like Kortendick's had several years ago. Make online shipping more user friendly and offer a greater discount for printing postage at home. There....problems solved!

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  13. Johnson boys and girls -- Buy it and give it to the Heritage Museum . Then move the post office into the Johnson building. 70% of the Downtown mail these days are generated from there.

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  14. Anon 8:12 might be a good point except Sturtevant's office is actually undersized. It needs to be expanded as the population it serves has grown people move out of the city. Take a look at a map of the 53177 zip code and you can see the area it serves.

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  15. I say tear it down, build a mini-mart and gas station!

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  16. This is such a great building - I hope someone can find a good use for it.

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  17. Put the Public Library in it and tear down that lakefront building and sell the valuable lake front land to be developed.

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  18. MUSEUM MUSEUM MUSEUM MUSEUM MUSEUM

    It's affordable

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  19. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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