The United States Postal Service is eyeing a store on Doheny Drive near Dorrington Avenue, just south of Santa Monica Boulevard, to move its retail counter services and post office boxes in the wake of budget shortages forcing the closure of the retail counter at the current USPS location on San Vicente Boulevard.
Postal officials sent word to West Hollywood City Hall on Tuesday that it is considering moving to 458 Doheny Drive, the current site of a home furnishing store that is going out of business.
“The Doheny site is the only location we have found [in the West Hollywood area] that meets USPS needs and the needs of the community,” said Richard Maher, the USPS’ public information officer for the Los Angeles area.
For the next 30 days, the post office will accept letters of comment from the public about the possible move. Those letters should be sent to:
Diana Alvarado
USPS Facilities Implementation
1300 Evans Ave. Ste. 200
San Francisco CA 94188-8200
After the 30-day public comment period ends, postal officials will make a final decision on moving to the 4,000-square-foot location on Doheny, a half mile away from the current site at 820 San Vicente Blvd., just north of Santa Monica.
“There would be no change to ZIP code or post-office box numbers,” Maher said. “There is a parking garage … it has plenty of free parking.”
During a public meeting held in Nov. 2012, Maher explained that the post office is in a severe budget crisis due to a 30-percent drop in first-class mail volume since 2006. The postal service, which receives no tax dollars, has lost $40 billion in the last six years, $15.9 billion during the fiscal year 2012 alone. That averages to $57 million lost every day.
As part of a nationwide cost-cutting effort, the USPS plans to sell many of the facilities it owns, including its Beverly Hills building, located at 325 N Maple Drive at 3rd. The retail portion of the Beverly Hills post office will be moved to a new location in Beverly Hills.
However the delivery operations center for Beverly Hills would be moved to the 13,000-square-foot San Vicente location where West Hollywood mail is currently delivered from. Because WeHo delivers mail for ZIP codes beginning with 900 and Beverly Hills delivers mail for ZIP codes beginning with 902, the two operations can’t be combined. Similarly, the building is too small to have two different ZIP code delivery areas.
As a result, the retail counter services and post office boxes currently housed in the San Vicente building has to be relocated. Maher said the 458 Doheny Drive location is the only one the UPSP found with adequate parking in the general vicinity of the current post office.
Meanwhile, the West Hollywood delivery operations center will be moved into the post office’s Bicentennial station at 7610 Beverly Blvd. at Curson (near the CBS Television City and the Grove shopping center). Because the Bicentennial station also delivers to ZIP codes beginning with 900, those two operations can be combined easily.
An exact date for the relocation to Doheny, if approved, is not yet known.
“We have to accept comments for 30 days before we can move forward,” Maher said.
Todd, you are one smart cookie! I agree with everything you said. One more note, Doheny has ONE lane in each direction. When the light at Santa Monica Blvd/Doheny is RED, the traffic backs up 20 plus cars in each direction on Doheny. And, to park on the street you have to have a permit or use the 6 street meters they have, or park on the side streets. Did the USPO do a traffic survey and impact study to this area? I went by the proposed location this morning and the underground parking is a joke. FYI, the proposed… Read more »
@LarryBlock @ChloeRoss How about if the City takes all those millions of dollars from the Robogarage bond sale and instead rebuilds or remodels the post office on San Vicente? Of course, the problem is that the PO needs to stay open during construction. That’s where the Red Building could come in. It’s still vacant. Maybe it needs a temporary tenant. Or perhaps the City could partner with the USPO to do the project. The City did a co-development deal with LA County for Fire Station 7 just up the street. That was a good model for inter-governmental cooperation. Both the… Read more »
Build it up.. like that.. there should be no reason to remove our local post office from San Vicente.. it has great access. Perhaps the city with its AAA bond rating should purchase the land and build it up then lease it back to the post office, everybodys happy.. and if the post office leaves.. well.. they are talking about a new sheriff station or spending 250k on a survey to move city hall… well.. we can get it all done in one shot! Petco parking is great, but sometimes its hard to get in and out of. On weekends… Read more »
Why not just call it Beverly Hills ……Can you get any further West?
The Petco location is not ideal, but it does have a parking lot. As Chloe pointed out, the Petco lot is not ideal. I approach it from westbound Melrose and the side alley. I leave by turning north on Doheny. But it’s definitely not ideal. It seems to me that the best solution would be to do what many homeowners do: Remodel and build up if possible. The USPO owns the property on San Vicente and it’s still a convenient location for most people – both north of Sunset and the surrounding area. And San Vicente is a far better… Read more »
I have two IDs here on WeHoville – voolavex is Chloe Ross and it is the same email. Thx.
Have you ever actually tried to use the Petco lot? Turn on any side street going north. Todd nailed it. And why so far at the western edge. Oh, wait, I know – after they try and close the Fairfax branch (which they could) it would mean yet another blight on the East Side.
Uh, it’s a disaster location. San Vicente can handle the traffic and parking for the volume of this post office. This location would be very difficult to access and cause terrible traffic snarls on already-choked N. Doheny Dr.and a nightmare to the narrow residential streets of West Hollywood – West which abuts this location.
Adequate parking? Really? The only location that has adequate parking on this stretch of Doheny is the Petco just north of this proposed site (and that used to be a small market).
Leave it where it is!