THIS COULD BE THE END OF THE HEIGHTS POST OFFICE 
Note: This story has been updated. Late yesterday the US Postal Service announced it is “considering relocating the retail services” from the Heights Finance Station at 1050 Yale St. Under the proposed plan, retail services at the single-story building, which sits on more than an acre of land bounded by Yale, 11th St., and Heights Blvd. would be moved to the T.W. House Carrier Annex at the corner of Bevis and 19th St. in Shady Acres. Does the the announcement mean the Yale St. facility will be closed or sold? “Since the relocation of the station is still in the consideration phase and no final determination has been made, there is no available information about the future of the building,” local USPS spokesperson Dionne Montague tells Swamplot. If you’re seeking better answers, you might want to attend Monday’s planned public meeting on the topic, set for 5 pm at the city hall annex downtown. A 15-day official public comment period will follow the meeting. Photo: Swamplot inbox
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any chance anyone knows the plans for which montrose facilities USPS will be retaining and which ones will close? Are both the Timmons and Greenbriar facilities to remain open? always hear they’ll be closing the university office on Richmond (which is the one i like best), but I always figured it’d be better for them to sell the W. Gray office location since i assume that land is more valuable. guess if they’re closing Yale it makes sense to retain W. Gray for better access to the washington heights area though.
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regardless, good for them, can’t imagine a better time to being selling off their Houston properties. it’s a real shame for an independently operating company to have their business decisions governed by congress. they really need to sell off properties and consolidate in a major way in order to provide better service to their customers and employees. farm out the rural locations to postal machines in businesses/grocery stores and the like.
I don’t know how I feel about this. It is closer to my house, and service at 11th and Yale is maddeningly slow. However, I have had to deal with the Annex on multiple occasions (lost mail box key, packages inexplicably held there), and the service has been awful. I guess if they did this though, they would have to put people who are actually used to dealing with the public in there. I will say it is not going to help the Shady Acres pedestrian traffic situation–we already have people that race through the neighborhood (especially on those streets that don’t have speed bumps) on streets that in many places have no sidewalks and are lined with cars on both sides, so bringing more in will just make it worse.
I hope they build something hipster-approved on that land so we won’t have any ineffective protests about land use just blocks from my house.
The Yale St. post office is a complete waste of space. I can drive to River Oaks and get through the line on Dunlavy faster than I can get help at the Yale St. post office. I am as liberal as they get, but the Yale St. post office is exhibit “A” in any argument to privatize the postal service. And it is the ugliest building on Heights Blvd. Close it. Sell it. Knock it down. Put in a nice little restaurant instead.
Say it isn’t so! There should be some upside to all the traffic being piled onto Yale with 2 mid rises on the way just a couple of blocks away.
Worst decision ever. The USPS is making themselves obsolete. The Bevis location is not staffed at the front. It’s primarily a sorting facility. You have to ring a bell and hope someone responds and you don’t get stuck in there for an hour. Do they plan on adding front desk staff?
If they do this, I am done shipping USPS. The TW House Annex is way out of the way and maddeningly slow.
That Post Office sits on $2M worth of prime Heights dirt, yet contributes no property tax and no sales tax. Not to mention it’s just really ugly.
Can’t happen soon enough.
This post office was worthless anyway. I’ve had really good service at the Cavalcade office though. I had to send a package to someone (a walking cane) and the tubular cardboard box was too short. The woman behind the countered offered to improvise a new container using the tube and some other cardboard. They actually made it for me. God bless them.
Good riddance! Worst counter service in a system in which bad service is the norm. I would hope they would not transfer the counter staff up to Shady Acres, but it couldn’t be any worse ( wait, yes it could) than the people who work in the annex on 19th Street now. It’s sad that the Post Office has become a pension and health care provider that secondarily delivers mail.
I avoid the counter service in this location like the plague. All the workers in this location can go to hell for all I care. One time just a week or so before Christmas a frail elderly lady asked one of the workers (I’ll call her Bull Frog) for Christmas stamps. Bull Frog said sorry we are out of Christmas stamps, do you how about Kwanzaa stamps. The poor old lady says, no I would like Christmas stamps. Bull Frog says (in her deep boisterous mean voice) well we don’t have any, your choice is Kwanzaa or Hanukkah. WTF!!!
If this Heights post office had customer service, I’d miss it. Every time I went there, it was “break time”, broken machines, mumbling clerk, and just disdain for anyone who needed assistance. Quit going there. Govt customer service, another reason why the postal service has been a money loser for years. Let’s hope the new location is staffed with employees that are polite.
A bunch of Swamplot commenters spend a bunch of time in post offices. Who knew? I haven’t been inside a post office in years.
I wonder if those of you complaining about the service wrote this post office off and just haven’t been back? They have really stepped up their game. The lines have been moving very fast and there has been much attitude improvement. Even with the line moving quickly, one still always exists because A LOT of people use that post office. To make 19th and Bevis the primary post office for the Heights is just stupid. More and more density is coming (apartments and town homes all up and down Yale, right down the street) and we need ample services to accommodate the masses. Shutting this station down will not help a damn thing.