Postal Service gives ‘green light’ for Washington post o ce construction
Town mayor says look for bulldozers by end of this month
Don’t look now, but Mid-Atlantic Postal Properties developer Tim Tedrick is scheduled to meet with his construction site contractor on Leggett Lane in Washington the week of September 21st.
“So my guess is that we’ll start having bulldozers and other site work happening before the end of the month,” Washington Mayor Fred Catlin dared say in a Saturday interview with the News.
Perhaps the mayor wouldn’t be as optimistic were it not for the long-awaited word that the US Postal Service this past week had given nal approval for the building and budgetary plans for the new post o ce, which promises to ow architecturally with the historic county seat.
“We have passed the nal hurdles with all of the federal governmental agencies,” said Catlin, referring to the US Postal Service and US Army Corp of Engineers. “Now we are down to the nal requirements for VDOT [an assurance bond concerning the main Warren Avenue entrance], which should not take very long at all . . . Once we have probably two or three other little dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s we’re ready to go.”
Tedrick told the mayor last week that the exterior shell of the post office “will go up in about sixty days . . . [likely] before the end of the calendar year. Which is great because then the interior work can continue during the winter without being affected by the weather. And the interior work shouldn’t take that long,” Catlin hoped.
That said, final budget projections for the Washington post office proved to be higher than for similar projects in a small community this size. For one, a more period-style exterior brick was selected in keeping with the town’s early-American charm. And a retention tank was required beneath the future parking lot to satisfy federal wetland regulations.
Then there is the addition of a not-so-ordinary (by government standards) roofline, with arrangements already made for it to be paid through private donations.
“One of the things when the Postal Service [constructs] post offices they build kind of minimum-quality, minimum-style, and so you have . . . one of these 4/12 roofs [where the roof rises 4 inches in height for every 12 inches] — it looks pretty tacky,” Catlin opined.
“This town has wonderful character, and there are a lot of people that did not want the first thing that people see when they come off the highway is this kind of an ugly looking typical post office. So there is a group of people who are interested in raising funds to make some [additional] enhancements to the post office so that it has more of a roofline that reflects the rooflines of all the other kinds of buildings in town,” he said.
Add to that “a metal standing seam roof versus the asphalt shingles,” the mayor continued. “And then a couple of other things . . . so it won’t stand out like a sore thumb.”
The mayor assured this newspaper that he and Tedrick in recent months have discussed the enhanced building requests and all the materials are in the process of being ordered, given the USPS final approval last week. Catlin said the goal will be to raise about $50,000 for the roof project.
The green light from the Postal Service is welcome news for the many customers of the 22747 zip code, among them county and town officials.
Town Councilman Joe Whited, for one, alerted his friends and neighbors in writing that while he made “no excuses for past actions” the post office contractor “should begin construction in the near future. None of us are happy with the fact that this has dragged on for so long, with so many mistakes, mistarts, and rosey projections, but it does appear we are nearing the end of the saga once and for all,” the councilman wrote.
“The delays in this project had many causes, not the least of which were the overlapping regulations, ordinances, and jurisdictions (ie.) the Postal Service, Army Corps of Engineers, the Commonwealth of Virginia, County, and yes the Town, which presented endless hurdles to progress,” he said.
“I make no excuses for it and frankly it's the sort of thing I went into public service to try and change, so I promise I am just frustrated as all of you. That being said, I remain hopeful that the end result will be a facility we will find useful, convenient, and in keeping with this wonderful rural community we are all lucky enough to call home.”