USPS Declines Northfield Council's Offer to Keep Downtown Post Office Open

In a letter to Northfield Mayor Mary Rossing on Wednesday, the United States Postal Service declined an offer for the city to purchase the and rent the space to the USPS for free.

"With the deficits we have now and in the foreseeable future, it is an economic necessity that we consider proposals that are fiscally sound," wrote USPS Regional District Manager Anthony Williams in the letter to Rossing. "It is not in our best interest to consider an offer of $1.00 for a building that has a market value that far exceeds that amount."

The decision came as a great disappointment to City Councilor Suzie Nakasian, who also serves on the Save Our Post Office Task Force.

Nakasian said the offer made sense to the task force and council, who sent a letter requesting to take control of the building, which has been a cornerstone of Nakasian said it would have saved the postal service $75,000 in annual operating costs and an estimated $350,000 to remodel the Hwy. 3 South carrier annex at 2101 Cannon Rd. in Northfield's south end, which the USPS plans to use as city's lone postal presence.

"Taken as a whole package, our proposal would have accomplished the mutually beneficial alternative to their abandoning our downtown," Nakasian told Northfield Patch. "It's disappointing that the USPS couldn't seem to think outside the box. I think they are investing money in a facility that people won't use, but I also understand that they are responding to internal pressures that are complex and unknown to us."

Northfield Downtown Development Corp. Executive Director and SOPO Task Force member Ross Currier told Patch in May that the downtown office has a gross income of about $900,000 a year. He believes a move to the south end of Northfield would only hurt postal business further because of the sheer number of people who live and work downtown who are not interested in driving to the annex location, potentially costing the USPS more than the $75,000 a year it hopes to save.

Now, Nakasian said, it's onto Plan B.

"It would have been best to have the USPS at the center of that plan, but we can move forward now without them being part of that picture," she said. "I have no doubt that Northfield will come up with a creative re-use plan. I look forward to being a part of that discussion."

In March, the Postmaster General told Congress that despite trimming $9 billion in costs, the United States Postal Service wouldn’t survive as a self-financing entity without significant changes to current law.

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said during the last two fiscal years, according to the USPS, the Postal Service has reduced costs by some $9 billion and the plan is to take out another $2 billion in 2011. But the Postal Service still lost a “staggering” $8.5 billion in 2010 and is projecting to be in the red this year by $6.4 billion.