Officials break ground at new Washington Post Office site
Developer anticipates the project will be completed in 60 days
It’s official: at long last, Little Washington is getting its post office back.
On Thursday, town officials gathered at the corner of Warren Avenue and Leggett Lane to break ground at the new construction site.
“I’m ecstatic,” said Washington mayor Fred Catlin. “I’m grateful [to] all the local officials . . . who have helped move this process forward as expeditiously as we can.”
Accompanied by County Supervisor Keir Whitson and former Washington Mayor John Fox Sullivan, Catlin dug his shovel into the earth to inaugurate the construction process. “We hope to be breaking ground in a couple of days — no longer some unknown time in the future.”
Established in 1804, the same year Lewis and Clark embarked on their famous expedition, the Washington Post Office is one of the oldest in the nation. Although the post office has been moved a few times in its 216-year history, it always remained centrally located in town. But the Washington Post Office has been altogether absent from the town for nearly a year.
“[The Post Office] is kind of a social gathering place for people where they’re able to interact with one another, catch up, say hi,” said Town Clerk Barbara Batson. “I think they miss that community.”
The branch lost its lease on Main Street in 2015 and the subsequent negotiations surrounding its relocation became embroiled in controversy. “We fought a behemoth,” said Sullivan. “After lots of work and creativity we came up with this site. It’s not a perfect site, but it’s workable.”
The site — owned by the town of Washington — contains a 300-square-foot portion of wetlands that, according to Catlin, “will not be disturbed.” The contracted building company, Mid-Atlantic Postal Properties, collaborated with the US Army Corps of Engineers to design a low-impact building plan.
“Any runoff we have from the parking lot will be going into a retention tank under the parking lot and it will be diffused into the soil,” Catlin said.
According to the mayor, the coronavirus pandemic has not affected the construction timeline. The developer anticipates that the project will reach completion a mere 60 days after first breaking ground.