ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 13, 1996 TAG: 9607150055
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KENNETH SINGLETARY STAFF WRITER
The U.S. Postal Service will keep a post office in downtown Christiansburg and will also consider a site on Roanoke Street near downtown for the town's new post office, according to a regional official.
Friday's announcement followed a last-minute call from Rep. Rick Boucher's staff to postal officials and local opposition to their intention to locate the town's new post office near the Marketplace shopping center off U.S. 460.
"The residents of Christiansburg can be assured of a new postal facility," Boucher, D-Abingdon, said Friday. "In addition, they can be assured of a downtown facility."
Diarmuid Dunne, manager of the Appalachian Postal District in Charleston, W.Va., said the postal service will consider a five-acre tract, big enough for the new post office, at the site of Homer Cox Ford on Roanoke Street. The proposal was put forward by the owners of the land and town residents this week.
Already, though, the Postal Service has issued a letter of intent to buy about five acres just north of the building on Arbor Drive that houses the Fun Challenge and Once Upon a Child.
That land offer came from Bill "Moose" Matthews, a local developer.
Many Christiansburg business owners and residents have opposed the plan to move the town's post office out of the downtown district to the congested mall area.
"We're willing to take a look at it, and that's where it stands right now," Dunne said.
Dunne said the downtown post office would be operated by a contractor and would remain open for customers who want to buy stamps, mail letters and check postal boxes.
Boxes at the downtown and Cambria offices will be transferred to the new post office, and customers will have to get new box numbers if they want to keep a box in the downtown location.
Dunne said postal officials will be in Christiansburg within weeks to look at the new proposal for the office.
Of the Marketplace site, Matthews said, "They are taking a look at it. There are no done deals."
Dunne said the service must choose a site and sign a contract by Sept. 1 to retain this year's funding for the project.
"If we miss that Sept. 1 deadline, we have no funding. ... So it's real important to us that we move on this in the next couple of weeks," Dunne said.
These latest developments came after a group of Christiansburg business people and residents this week put together a late attempt to attract the Postal Service to the site on Roanoke Street across from the old Appalachian Power Co. building, where New River Community College now has offices and classrooms.
Mary B. Straub, David Hagan and Larry Shelor offered a five-acre tract that includes the former Homer Cox Ford building and land behind it.
"I really did not want to sell this property because it brings me good rent, but if it will keep the post office in Christiansburg, it behooves me to do it," Straub said. She owns CJ & S Petroleum Co., and is the widow of former Christiansburg Mayor Charlie Straub, who died last year.
Hagan and Shelor are co-owners of Shelor Chevrolet and own the Homer Cox Ford building, which is now a used-car outlet.
Bill Maddy, a real estate agent, put together the proposal when he learned Hagan and Shelor were willing to sell their building. He talked Straub into offering her land, which has two warehouses and a truck storage lot. One warehouse is empty, and one contains business and family items, she said.
Maddy earlier had offered the post office a site between Kmart and the former Heironimus building on Peppers Ferry Road, where Wades had been planning to build a grocery store.
Lewis Nash, a real estate specialist with the Postal Service in Greensboro, N.C., said that site was the service's first choice, but it was rejected because of easements and topography.
The Postal Service then turned its sights toward the Matthews property.
Maddy said Matthews' site, located just within the northern boundary of Christiansburg, would "actually serve Blacksburg better than Christiansburg
Post office officials announced in January they would combine the downtown and Cambria offices into a new, larger post office, preferably, they said, near the Marketplace because it has become the locus of activity for the town.
The downtown post office has too little parking and cannot accommodate high-tech machinery to make mail delivery more efficient.
Post office officials have in mind a 24,500-square-foot building on a five-acre tract that would allow for plenty of parking.
While the decision to retain a downtown post office will be a relief to residents, many people may be disappointed if the new post office is located near the Marketplace.
"How many people have asked that the post office be moved closer to the mall?" asked Glenn Cochran, an insurance agent who spent Thursday and Friday distributing a petition asking that the Postal Service consider the Roanoke Street site. "I would say it would be 100-to-1 in favor of having it closer to downtown Christiansburg."
Many people, especially older ones, don't want to drive that distance through the traffic on U.S. 460 to go to the post office, Cochran said.
Some local businesses go to the post office several times a day, and dealing with traffic that often could hurt their operations, Straub said.
Nash said the post office considered accessibility when looking at the Matthews property, and noted that the 3A bypass is to be built in that area.
"We felt in the long run we expect to be there for a number of years" and that eventually the bypass would reduce traffic congestion on U.S. 460, Nash said.
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