As the U.S. Postal Service weighs offers for post offices nationwide, a New York-based commercial real estate company sealed a deal for one boasting one of Fairfield County”™s best addresses.
Malkin Properties L.L.C. spent $15.1 million to acquire 310 Greenwich Ave. in Greenwich, which for nine more months will serve as the location of the neighborhood”™s U.S. post office as it has since 1917. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
New York City-based Malkin Properties indicated the deal amounts to more than $860 a square foot, with the building totaling 17,500 square feet of space.
Greenwich Avenue continues to command one of the top office and retail lease rates in the nation, according to a recent study by Jones Lang LaSalle.
Controlled by Greenwich resident Peter Malkin, Malkin Properties is best known for large office buildings it owns in Fairfield County, New York City, and Westchester County, N.Y., including Metro Center in Stamford and First Stamford Place. But Malkin Properties owns a handful of smaller buildings positioned for retail and small-business offices, including two on Main Street in Westport.
Westport”™s post office was sold in May for $2.4 million to an Atlanta company that indicated it would look to draw a retail store or restaurant to the space.
Faced with a massive nationwide infrastructure that is no longer financially sustainable, the U.S. Postal Service proposed sweeping changes designed to save the organization up to $3 billion a year by cutting its network of processing facilities by more than half.
Proposals under consideration include cutting the workforce by as many as 35,000 jobs, studying nearly 250 processing facilities for possible consolidation or closure and reducing mail-processing equipment by as much as 50 percent.
“We are forced to face a new reality today,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, in a prepared statement. “First-class mail supports the organization and drives network requirements. With the dramatic decline in mail volume and the resulting excess capacity, maintaining a vast national infrastructure is no longer realistic. Since 2006, we have closed 186 facilities, removed more than 1,500 pieces of mail-processing equipment, decreased employee complement by more than 110,000 through attrition and reduced costs by $12 billion.”
Mail volume has dropped by more than 43 billion pieces in the past five years and is continuing to decline, creating substantial excess capacity within the postal processing network. Stamford mailing services giant Pitney Bowes Inc. has likewise been dealing with similar trends, as it introduces new digital services it hopes will reposition itself for accelerating growth.
