The Postal Service plans to sell the building at 180 E. Kellogg Blvd. and move to an expanded facility in Eagan, a suburb southwest of St. Paul. The news was disclosed in a letter sent Monday by deputy postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to US Rep. Betty McCollum.
"We have made a determination that relocating our St. Paul mail processing operations to an expanded Eagan [bulk mail center] is a prudent course of action and is in the best interest of the Postal Service, as well as the St. Paul community," the letter says.
Although the move would result in the loss of about 1,400 Downtown jobs, city officials welcomed it because it would allow the construction of a major transit hub, costing an estimated $800 million, for light-rail. The hub, near the Mississippi River, would make the city a key link between Minneapolis and high-speed rail service to Chicago and Milwaukee or commuter rail service from North Branch to the north and Hastings to the south.
"This is an investment in the future economic viability of the entire region," says McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota. McCollum had been active in encouraging the move and had sent a letter dated April 22 to Postmaster General John Potter regarding the status of the decision on relocating the processing and distribution center.
In the letter, Donahoe said the postal service is "willing to sell" its building to the City of St. Paul at a "reasonable price that recognizes the value in use of this building to the Postal Service." Rudy Umscheid, facilities vice president for the Postal Service, has been assigned to negotiate the terms and conditions of both the sale of the St. Paul site and the expansion of the Eagan site. Donahoe hopes the negotiations will be done in three to four months. He also believes his board of governors could approve the move by the middle of next year with the completion of the move by early 2009.
The fate of the 500,000-sf building is unclear because the key to the move is the relocation of a riverfront truck dock where more than 400 tractor-trailers a day move in and out of Downtown. The old tracks at Union Depot cannot be revived until the trucks go.
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