Postal Service Looks to Sell Historic Buildings

[FarCenter]

Many buildings currently owned by the Postal Service are for sale, or are being considered for sale. Preservation groups say some of the buildings are architecturally significant and that their design elements and historic features should be protected.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/07/arts/design/postal-service-looks-to-sell-historic-buildings.html

Whatever their architectural merits, most of these look terribly inefficient to house what is, essentially, a shipping company.

[bluedigger]

1. Public architecture is a hallmark of culture.

Here in the US, post offices served to bind us together as they are the one visible presence of the Federal government that is found in every community. Modern post offices are drab and functional, easily forgotten, disposable architecture.

[summerschild]

7. Congress to Postal Service

http://livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu/congress-to-postal-service-drop-dead/

Congress to Postal Service: “Drop Dead!”
America’s historic post offices are unique in their variety and quality as well as in the public art that make them the People’s Art Gallery. Without the magnificent post offices built during the New Deal and before, Voorhees said, “there would be a distinct loss to the spiritual and patriotic relationship between the citizen and the government if its activities were carried on in bare warehouses without architectural significance or dignity and constructed as cheaply and as shoddily as the average speculative structure.”

The sell off and relocation of the post offices is the nightmare that Voorhees foresaw. Perhaps it is precisely to break that relationship between the citizen and government that our post offices are now regarded not as our shared legacy, but simply as surplus real estate to be liquidated.

[Drale]

2. They were going to turn the Old Post Office here in Chicago

into a hotel but that fell through when we didn't get the Olympics. If done right I think that would have been a good idea.

[onehandle]

3. Donald Trump is trying to buy the beautiful atrium building in DC.

He wants to turn it into a breeding facility for whatever animal it is that produces the 'hair' for his wig.

[summerschild]

4. Privatizers, profits, and plums

The Postal Service owns a veritable treasure in real estate, both historically significant buildings as well as suburban sites built for large processing centers. Most of the old inner city offices are on prime real estate; the large plants generally have valuable access to transportation routes (contrary to FarCenter's perception of postal activities, the "shipping company" aspects emanate from those rather than innercity facilities.) I would guess every large city has one or more significant buildings such as this article features.

Our city's beautiful old “Main Post Office”, was built on land donated to the city and forbidden for any use except by the citizens of Memphis. I haven't been in the offices featured in this article, but here, our most historic office went through numerous iterations over the past 25 years - from full scale PO to a customer box operation and carrier station. Then, we used it many years as a Postal training facility, then turned it over to the University of Memphis Law School, which uses it now.

Postal Service real estate is just another “plum” being picked by those who will profit from the Congressional quest to privatize the Postal Service. I had been wondering which "crony" would get this plum pudding. I finally found out who was connected to CBRE, the corporation contracted to sell off Postal holdings. I'm sure other cronies will get bargains after CBRE takes their cut. In fact, since CBRE also tells USPS what to sell, that group of profiteers are probably busy now placing their orders with CBRE:

http://livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu/congress-to-postal-service-drop-dead/

The fire sale of our post offices is accelerating while the media remain largely asleep at the wheel.
In July 2011, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) gave an exclusive contract to liquidate the public’s property to the giant commercial real estate firm C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE), which also advises the Postal Service on which properties to sell.

It’s no surprise, then, that so many of the post offices listed for sale or already sold happen to be in expensive real estate markets like Santa Monica, Venice, Palo Alto and Berkeley in California; Greenwich, Connecticut; Towson and Bethesda in Maryland; Northfield, Minnesota; and New York City.

CBRE is effectively owned and chaired by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, billionaire private equity financier Richard Blum. If you visit the CBRE website devoted to marketing postal properties you will find no distinction between superb, historic post offices and blandly utilitarian processing facilities or vacant lots. For CBRE, it’s all simply real estate thrown into the same lucrative bin. A listing on the National Register of Historic Places and the presence of art works created during the New Deal only serve as impediments to moving those properties quickly.

The USPS seems only too happy to help with removing those obstacles. To get around historic preservation rules, for example, the USPS claims that it is not actually closing and selling the historic buildings that it is, in fact, closing and selling, but is simply “relocating services.”
(Skip)
America’s historic post offices are unique in their variety and quality as well as in the public art that make them the People’s Art Gallery. Without the magnificent post offices built during the New Deal and before, Voorhees said, “there would be a distinct loss to the spiritual and patriotic relationship between the citizen and the government if its activities were carried on in bare warehouses without architectural significance or dignity and constructed as cheaply and as shoddily as the average speculative structure.”

The sell off and relocation of the post offices is the nightmare that Voorhees foresaw. Perhaps it is precisely to break that relationship between the citizen and government that our post offices are now regarded not as our shared legacy, but simply as surplus real estate to be liquidated.

For more on the loss of America’s post offices, why it is happening, and what you can do, visit http://www.savethepostoffice.com/

[bluedigger]

9. Richard Blum is a principal in URS Corp, one of the US Government's largest private contractors.

URS provides many consulting services to the government, primarily civil engineering, but also including technical expertise in historic preservation, to include providing historic architects to make Sec. 106 determinations. I don't know about any specific services currently being provided to any particular agencies.

[FarCenter]

10. Historically or architecturally significant buildings are worth nothing to someone sending a letter

It is just part of the overhead that makes USPS less competitive with other shippers.

[pansypoo53219]

5. current postmaster sucks. we need a fighter.

[grahamhgreen]

6. What bullsh*t. Sick of the privateers.

[Paul E Ester]

8. These sales are being manages by CBRE a company run by Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband.

Noithing to see here, move along.

[JPZenger]

11. If they don't find a sensitive buyer, then it is a problem

Problems occur when historic buildings are dumped quickly to speculators, who may just let them rot. An appropriate process would search for responsible buyers, but sometimes that process is hard to do with government regulations.