Process begins to move, downsize Iowa City Post Office

IOWA CITY -- Postal officials say the current downtown Iowa City post office is costing too much as mail volume continues to decline.

During a public meeting to discuss the process and plans to move and downsize the Iowa City post office Wednesday Angela Kuhl, real estate specialist at the USPS, said the Iowa City Post Office, which sits at 400 S. Clinton St., is paying too much money for more space than it needs.

Kuhl said the post office is occupying 26,000 square feet of space in a building owned by the U.S. General Services Administration, across from the Johnson County Courthouse, and can operate with 16,000 square feet. She said the post office is also paying $700,000 annual rent, which is high compared to market values.

At the same time, there has been a 25 percent reduction in mail volume over the last 5 years alone, Kuhl said, adding the USPS has tried to negotiate using less space in it's current building without success. Stacy St. John, Iowa City and Coralville postmaster, said roughly 60 to 70 percent of the Iowa City locations post office boxes are rented.

Kuhl said services will not be interrupted when the move takes place, and they are looking to move the post office to an area in the same general location, which they would lease. Though an exact location has not been determined, city officials have said that, if the post office stays in the same general area, it would likely be part of the city's Riverfront Crossings development.

Kuhl said requirements for the new facility include handicap accessibility, accessibility to maneuver mail trucks, enough parking for both employees and customers, and finding a location that meets the desired square footage.

Though there isn't a specific timeline, Kuhl said the post office will move from an annual, to a month to month least with the General Services Administration at the end of August.

Most comments from the public during the meeting were over concerns of accessibility, and whether the move was necessary at all. Kuhl explained that, even with adjustments, the U.S. Postal Service is losing $25 million per day, even after reducing it's cost base by more than $16 million and reducing it's career workforce, without layoffs, by 202,000 since 2006.

Stacy St. John, postmaster at the Iowa City post office, added the U.S. Postal Service does not operate on tax dollars.

"Revenues are what revenues are," St. John said. "We have done due diligence trying to operate with as many reductions as possible without really being able to operate as a business, we have to run any new business models through congress and get their approval, we don't have the ability to adjust our business plan."

After Kuhl sends a letter to Hayek, she said the USPS is inviting the community to provide comments and express their concerns over the move for a period of 30 days. During that 30 days, citizens are also able to file an appeal over the move. No further action will be taken during that 30 day period.

Should the project to move the post office move forward, Kuhl said the USPS would begin to identify potential properties for the new post office location through a national contractor, and that Hayek would be be notified of progress along every step of the process.

After the meeting, Hayek said he understands why the move is necessary, adding that the most important thing to the city is that there continues to be accessible mail service to residents.

"I think the model is unsustainable on a national basis and the postal service has no choice but to restructure how it operates and the facilities it uses and so forth," Hayek said. "We first saw these changes in smaller communities where the postal facility was under threat of elimination but it doesn't surprise me that the issue is now bubbling up into the larger community."