ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180090
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KENNETH SINGLETARY STAFF WRITER
Add another twist to the continuing saga of the future of the town's post office: Now the owners of an alternative downtown site on Roanoke Street have withdrawn their offer to sell, less than a week after announcing it.
Thus, the new post office will almost certainly be built on Arbor Drive behind the Marketplace shopping center, said Lewis Nash, a Postal Service real estate specialist from Greensboro, N.C., who looked at the Roanoke Street proposal Monday.
The Postal Service has issued a letter of intent to buy developer Bill Matthews' property in the busy U.S. 460-Peppers Ferry Road area, according to postal officials.
Meanwhile, Town Council on Tuesday passed a resolution asking that the town's existing downtown post office be kept open as a "classified" facility with window attendants, just like Blacksburg's smaller downtown post office.
Larry Shelor, David Hagan and Mary Straub together last week put together a late offer to the U.S. Postal Service of a combined five-acre tract including the Homer Cox Ford building and land behind it on Roanoke Street. But early this week, Shelor and Hagan, who own Shelor Chevrolet and the Homer Cox Ford building, backed out.
Shelor said Wednesday the offer was available for only a short time, and that he and Hagan had decided to use the land for storage buildings they had been planning to put there.
Straub, who owns the remainder of the tract, including two warehouses, said, "I really wasn't ready to sell that property, and I'm sure we can find a use for it."
Straub said she was disappointed because the withdrawal of the offer means all hopes of the new facility being located downtown are dashed.
A new post office near the Marketplace "looks like a done deal," she said. Straub owns CJ&S Oil and is the widow of former mayor Charlie Straub, who died last year.
The town's current post office, at Main and Franklin streets, dates from the 1930s and is infamous for having only five parking spaces.
The Postal Service promises the new facility will feature plenty of parking and high-tech equipment, which might speed delivery.
But residents say a post office near the busy and congested Marketplace area will still be an inconvenience and that the town's elderly population, and other residents, will not want to contend with traffic.
As a compromise, on Friday the Postal Service promised to keep the downtown office open as a contract facility, offering mail drop-off, stamps and postal boxes. The service's offer came after staffers in Rep. Rick Boucher's office made several calls Thursday and Friday to Postal Service administrators in the Appalachian Postal District, which includes Southwest Virginia, headquartered in Charleston, W.Va.
But the Christiansburg Town Council decided that compromise isn't good enough. Thus, they passed Tuesday's resolution, adding teeth to the wording, at the suggestion of Councilman Wayne Booth, that specifically requests a classified facility.
Will the resolution have the desired effect?
Mayor Harold Linkous, himself a former Postal Service employee, said in the nine years the town has been working on getting a new post office, he has learned the Postal Service moves in mysterious ways.
"The decision is theirs for their own reasons."
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB