Postal Parking Not At Premium Mail Distribution Moved From Seventh Street Office

(From For the Record, January 29, 1997:) Postal clerk Glen Fisher was misidentified in a photo on Page B1 Tuesday.

Until Monday, an open parking space at the post office was almost rare enough to be worth a few ounces of gold.

Now the real estate available for parking has more than doubled.

Monday the post office started the engines at its new mail distribution facility, near the Idaho Panhandle National Forest supervisor’s office on Schreiber Way.

That pulls 75 employees and several mail trucks out of the cramped, Seventh Street quarters that has housed both post office and mail distribution. Their machines and equipment were moved Saturday night.

Ten Coeur d’Alene rural routes that were housed in Hayden were moved to the new digs. About 20 downtown delivery routes also now work from the new center.

“It makes it a lot more expedient and cost-effective,” said Rick Moore, who is acting postmaster. “All of the carriers are now located where the mail is processed.”

The back parking lot at the downtown post office, formerly home to mail trucks, now will accommodate about 15 customers’ cars. That’s a giant bonus considering that before, there only were seven spaces, including the handicapped space.

Cars frequently were backed out into Seventh Street when the tiny parking lot became snarled.

People will continue to buy stamps and envelopes and mail packages at the downtown post office. In April, that building will be remodeled to include a postal products store.

The postal store allows people to get boxes, tape and other supplies, wrap their packages and then take them to a clerk for mailing, Moore said.

The cost of the remodeling was not available. It will take about three months.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Ken Olsen Staff writer Staff photographer Jesse Tinsley contributed to this report.