POSTAL SERVICE SIGNS LEASE FOR PROCESSING CENTER

A central processing center for mail in Southeast Missouri will be situated in the Cape West Industrial Park, Cape Girardeau Postmaster Mike Keefe said Thursday.

The postal service has agreed to lease a 37,604-square-foot building from Drury Development Corp., which will house the processing center.

Keefe said the postal service will take possession of the building on Nov. 9. He said the facility will be operational prior to Dec. 1.

The center will process ingoing and outgoing mail utilizing automated equipment. It will serve most of Southeast Missouri.

"Right now there are mail processing centers in Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, Flat River and Cape Girardeau," Keefe said. "All four facilities will be combined in this facility."

Keefe said automation will bring about "more economical and cost- effective mail delivery." He said automated equipment allows the postal service to hire fewer employees, because the equipment handles 10 times the amount of mail a clerk can for the same cost.

He said a machine can process 1,000 letters at a cost of about $3. For a mail clerk to manually process 1,000 letters, it costs about $35, he said.

Keefe said 84 cents of every dollar the post office receives, pays for personnel costs. But by using automated sorting and processing equipment, he said, the postal service hopes to reduce the number of postal jobs in two years by 100,000.

"The whole idea behind automation is not to make the postal system any faster, it's to make it more cost effective," he said. "Using the machines ultimately can hold labor costs down."

Keefe said the postal service nationwide is becoming more automated than ever before. It's goal is to automate all processing centers in the country by 1995, he said.

"If the post office is going to survive in the future, we have to be able to give reasonable rates and quality service," he said.

The building leased by the postal service is along Kell Farm Drive in west Cape Girardeau. Keefe said several modifications have to be made in the building before the processing center can locate there. Keefe said offices will be constructed and work will be done on the air conditioning system, lighting and electrical systems.

Keefe said Drury Development has 90 day to complete all modifications to the building, according to the lease agreement.

The processing center won't affect operations at the Cape Girardeau Post Office on Frederick Street, he said.

Keefe said postal employees in Southeast Missouri whose jobs are eliminated over the next several years because of automation will be offered jobs in the processing center.

"They will be given the option to transfer to Cape Girardeau," he said.

Keefe said businesses in the immediate area will have the option of bringing their mail to the processing center, thereby saving on mailing costs.