Frederick Street post office aims for August opening

The interior of the old post office at 329 N. Frederick St. in Cape Girardeau is largely bare, gutted by construction workers. But postmaster Mike Keefe expects the renovated post office, closed for nearly two years now, will reopen no later than Aug. 1. He's hoping it's even sooner than that.

"We're ready to get back in here," Keefe said Tuesday. "And since we're not in here getting in the way, it should go quicker."

The Frederick Street facility, which when operational was visited by 2,500 customers and handled 100,000 pieces of mail each day, was vacated in December 2004 because of a leaky roof. The U.S. Postal Service was leasing the 18,000-square-foot building, which had served as the city's post office for four decades.

Postal employees were moved to a temporary building at 284 Christine St. The postal distribution facility on Kell Farm Drive also served customers, and a postal substation opened in November at the Bi-State convenience store at 920 N. Kingshighway.

In April, the service announced it had bought the Frederick Street building for $500,000. In December, the new roof was completed and construction is underway to remodel the interior, Keefe said. The work includes new lighting, new mail boxes and 2,000 new post-office boxes -- 200 more than were there before the remodel, he said.

Tiles in the ceiling have been replaced, the retail section will be upgraded and the lobby will be larger and easier to negotiate, he said. Electrical work also is being done, Keefe said. The interior also houses the mail carrier operation, which includes about 75 postal employees.

"To be honest," Keefe said, "the customer won't notice a big difference, except that almost everything is new."

Roof repairs have cost at least $300,000, according to published reports. Less than $100,000 will be spent on cosmetic changes being made to the lobby and customer-service area. Keefe said the final tally for the renovation isn't yet known.

When the Frederick Street post office re-opens, the Christine facility will close and the Kell Farm Drive will convert back to a distribution center only, Keefe said. The substation at Bi-State will stay open, he said.

The postal service's decision to move back into the post office on Frederick Street has been a controversial one that was opposed by Mayor Jay Knudtson and U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau. They argued that the post office should be more centrally located and that the Frederick Street facility lacks parking.

Knudtson expressed more frustration Tuesday.

"The U.S. Postal Service obviously doesn't care what this mayor thinks," he said. "They're going to do what they want to when they want to do it. They appear to be allowing my letters -- and Jo Ann Emerson's letters -- to fall on deaf ears. The quality of expectations fall far below what the citizens of Cape Girardeau deserve."

Even though it's not technically in the center of the city, Keefe said the Frederick Street facility is still no more than a 10-to-12-minute drive from anywhere in Cape Girardeau.

"It's still very convenient for the customers," he said.

As for the parking, Keefe said he has approached city planner Kent Bratton about the possibility of making Frederick Street one way from North Street to Bellevue. That would allow diagonal parking instead of parallel parking, which Keefe estimates would double the on-street parking to about 20.

He said that would help, especially considering that most people are in the post office no more than 10 to 15 minutes.

Bratton said there may be problems with that idea. The city hasn't studied the proposal closely, but Bratton said the number of driveways would probably hinder the line of sight for drivers and would eat into the true number of spaces to be gained.

The planning department is still studying the matter, though, he said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137