Downtown Post Office remains open – The Daily Advertiser
The downtown Lafayette Post Office is out of the woods.
Officials announced on Thursday that they decided not to close the small post office in the Rosa Parks Transportation Center on East Cypress Street.
The downtown post office was one of nearly 3,700 around the country that officials earmarked in July for possible closure.
Officials, at the time, said fewer people today require a physical facility to conduct their postal business.
They apparently decided to keep the downtown post office open after a feasibility study showed that closing it would contribute to congestion and create hardships for residents and employees, a news release stated.
But it appears that finances played a big role in that decision.
“We cannot move any letter carrier routes or post office boxes to nearby stations without significant structural changes to those postal facilities,” Post Office Operations Manager Jeff Camp said in the news release. “Our financial condition does not allow this kind of expenditure at this time.”
The downtown postal facility has had a location at the intersection of Cypress and Jefferson streets near the underpass for years. In December, it moved out of its long-time Postal Square location, a former grocery store, and into the new Rosa Parks Transportation Center.
The U.S. Postal Service has a 10-year lease with Lafayette Consolidated Government for space in the Rosa Parks Center, Traffic and Transportation Director Tony Tramel said.