New deal brings new post office location to Cape

The office will be located at a gas station at 920 N. Kingshighway.

Cape Girardeau will get a post office substation this fall. This post office will be in a full convenience store where customers can gas up and mail letters.

Bi-State convenience store at 920 N. Kingshighway has entered into a 12-month contract with the U.S. Postal Service. The store will be paid a flat fee to provide postal services. Customers can mail letters or buy stamps at the store starting in mid-October, postmaster Mike Keefe said Thursday.

The exact date hasn't been finalized.

The Bi-State post office will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

"It will basically be a full-service post office," Keefe said.

The announcement comes as the postal service moves ahead with renovations to the 40-year-old downtown post office. The postal service plans to relocate from its temporary Christine Street storefront back downtown later this fall.

The postal service moved out of the post office building at 329 N. Frederick St. in March 2004 because of problems with a leaky roof.

Last April, the postal service spent $500,000 to purchase the vacated building it formerly rented.

Postal carriers could be back in the old post office as early as next month, Keefe said. The front retail area of that building should reopen in November before the Christmas rush.

The postal service expects to spend more than $700,000 on the renovation project.

Workers with Weathercraft Roofing of Grand Island, Neb., began replacing the roof in July. Bratton Brothers Construction of Olathe, Kan., is renovating the warehouse-like area of the building that will once again house the mail-carrier operation.

Keefe said the postal service soon will enter into a third and final construction contract, this one to modernize the post office lobby including the customer-service area. The postal service plans to install new post-office boxes as part of that work.

Despite the renovations, customer parking will remain limited at the old post office. There will be better parking at the convenience-store post office, Keefe said.

Both Keefe and Bi-State owner Scott Blank said postal customers should find the new post office more convenient because it is near the center of the city.

Blank has been seeking to offer the service for the past year and a half. U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson and her staff expressed dismay earlier this summer at the bureaucratic delays.

The amount of the contract wasn't disclosed. But Blank said his company won't get rich from the arrangement.

"It is a way for us to generate more traffic in our store," he said. The post office will be housed in unused office space in the store.

"For our business, it is all about convenience to the consumers," Blank said.

Customers can gas up, get stamps and mail letters at one place, he said. "It just eliminates a stop for them."

He hopes the postal service ultimately will enter into a long-term contract.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123