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BRECKENRIDGE — About 800 Breckenridge Post Office box users will be affected when the satellite site at City Market on Park Avenue is moved to Towne Square Mall at 100 N. Main Street.
“I do not know how they selected that place,” Breckenridge Postmaster BJ Huffman said. “It's going to be bigger ... but the parking is going to be a problem.”
Huffman said Thursday afternoon she'd already received more than a dozen calls from customers complaining about parking issues after notice was placed in boxes on Wednesday. But the U.S. Postal Service is closing on the property transactions next week and plans to complete the move by mid-October.
“It's a done deal,” Huffman said. “No amount of input at this period of time is going to do any good.”
Lee Hettick, Postal Service district safety manager, said that with the USPS in the red by about $9 billion, postal facilities across the country are being affected.
“We've got to do what we can in order to have enough money to make the payroll,” he said.
USPS Colorado spokesman Al Desarro said the 2.75 acre parcel at 410 N. Park Avenue is being sold to Thirty-Second Dee, LLC for an undisclosed price. The new satellite will be on the Towne Square Mall's first level, where the Painted Horse art gallery used to be.
With a lack of nearby street parking, most of the satellite's users will likely be parking in the Courthouse Lot, which has 45 spaces.
“It's basically the busiest parking lot in town,” Town Councilman Peter Joyce said at Tuesday's meeting, where many residents heard about the move for the first time.
Hettick said Wednesday that the satellite's transition should occur during a Sunday and by about Oct. 19.
“We don't want to do something up there that just crams stuff down people's throat,” Hettick said. “Actually, the purpose of our meeting (Tuesday) was to kind of inform folks what we've done, and there are business reasons for it.”
Asked why the Postal Service delayed release of its plans to the public, he said doing so could have caused the price of the new location to double.
Desarro said Wednesday that the new situation should be “win-win” for the Postal Service and town residents alike.
“It's going to be much nicer,” he said of the satellite on Main Street, which is to be 233 square feet larger than the existing one and perhaps one day could accommodate an automated postal center for such services as sending packages.
Councilman Dave Rossi said Thursday that putting satellites “where people live and where growth is” seems more reasonable than the Main Street site.
“It just seems like it was a decision made from an office nowhere near the town of Breckenridge, because that would have been the last place I would have wanted to put an operation that requires heavy parking and lots of traffic movement,” he said.
The mail-collection boxes at the satellite will be removed when the post office boxes are moved, but Hettick said he'll work with USPS to try to find another location for them.
“We're not going to leave people high and dry, not just walk away,” Hettick said.
He also said cluster boxes — post office boxes often placed around a town to serve neighborhoods — could perhaps be added later, as well.
The existing post office location and satellite are 0.8 miles apart. After the move, they'll be 0.3 miles — or about three blocks — apart.
Mayor John Warner on Tuesday pointed out that the town's been “saddled with a mediocre facility” for decades on Ridge Street, and perhaps it would be more feasible to just improve the main office and make it more accessible.
Hettick said the Wyoming and Colorado region serves about 600 communities and constructs about 20 post office buildings “on a good year.” This year, nine are getting built west of the Mississippi — excluding sites in California and Hawaii.
“We'd love to give you a new post office,” he said. “We're just $9 billion short right now.”
Robert Allen can be contacted at (970) 668-4628 or rallen@summitdaily.com.
“I do not know how they selected that place,” Breckenridge Postmaster BJ Huffman said. “It's going to be bigger ... but the parking is going to be a problem.”
Huffman said Thursday afternoon she'd already received more than a dozen calls from customers complaining about parking issues after notice was placed in boxes on Wednesday. But the U.S. Postal Service is closing on the property transactions next week and plans to complete the move by mid-October.
“It's a done deal,” Huffman said. “No amount of input at this period of time is going to do any good.”
Lee Hettick, Postal Service district safety manager, said that with the USPS in the red by about $9 billion, postal facilities across the country are being affected.
“We've got to do what we can in order to have enough money to make the payroll,” he said.
USPS Colorado spokesman Al Desarro said the 2.75 acre parcel at 410 N. Park Avenue is being sold to Thirty-Second Dee, LLC for an undisclosed price. The new satellite will be on the Towne Square Mall's first level, where the Painted Horse art gallery used to be.
With a lack of nearby street parking, most of the satellite's users will likely be parking in the Courthouse Lot, which has 45 spaces.
“It's basically the busiest parking lot in town,” Town Councilman Peter Joyce said at Tuesday's meeting, where many residents heard about the move for the first time.
Hettick said Wednesday that the satellite's transition should occur during a Sunday and by about Oct. 19.
“We don't want to do something up there that just crams stuff down people's throat,” Hettick said. “Actually, the purpose of our meeting (Tuesday) was to kind of inform folks what we've done, and there are business reasons for it.”
Asked why the Postal Service delayed release of its plans to the public, he said doing so could have caused the price of the new location to double.
Desarro said Wednesday that the new situation should be “win-win” for the Postal Service and town residents alike.
“It's going to be much nicer,” he said of the satellite on Main Street, which is to be 233 square feet larger than the existing one and perhaps one day could accommodate an automated postal center for such services as sending packages.
Councilman Dave Rossi said Thursday that putting satellites “where people live and where growth is” seems more reasonable than the Main Street site.
“It just seems like it was a decision made from an office nowhere near the town of Breckenridge, because that would have been the last place I would have wanted to put an operation that requires heavy parking and lots of traffic movement,” he said.
The mail-collection boxes at the satellite will be removed when the post office boxes are moved, but Hettick said he'll work with USPS to try to find another location for them.
“We're not going to leave people high and dry, not just walk away,” Hettick said.
He also said cluster boxes — post office boxes often placed around a town to serve neighborhoods — could perhaps be added later, as well.
The existing post office location and satellite are 0.8 miles apart. After the move, they'll be 0.3 miles — or about three blocks — apart.
Mayor John Warner on Tuesday pointed out that the town's been “saddled with a mediocre facility” for decades on Ridge Street, and perhaps it would be more feasible to just improve the main office and make it more accessible.
Hettick said the Wyoming and Colorado region serves about 600 communities and constructs about 20 post office buildings “on a good year.” This year, nine are getting built west of the Mississippi — excluding sites in California and Hawaii.
“We'd love to give you a new post office,” he said. “We're just $9 billion short right now.”
Robert Allen can be contacted at (970) 668-4628 or rallen@summitdaily.com.
