Wait pays off: Foothills gets bigger P.O. lot
40 spaces will be available for customers this winter
After years of a steadily worsening parking crunch, customers at the Foothills post office are being greeted, or will be this winter, by a parking lot which has doubled in size.
“Everybody’s excited about it, or they will be once they get back,” customer Carol Houggard said Friday afternoon after she arrived at the facility, a few hours after the last of the striping was completed.
Peter Haas, a spokesman for the United States Postal Service, said the expansion “is obviously going to providing some more parking spaces for customers, there were 18 parking spaces and now there’s 40.” This includes two handicapped spaces, where there was one before.
The entire lot for the office at 11692 S. Fortuna Ave. has been repaved and repainted, and the single blue dropoff box was moved from the north to east side, between the front entrance and Fortuna.
Houggard said the relocation of the mailbox freed up the north side of the property for additional parking. “I’m glad somebody got bright enough to figure out that they could get a lot more parking spaces in the space that they’ve got,” she said.
Haas said all 40 spaces should be available to post office customers, since the staff has worked with nearby businesses to find other places where they can park their vehicles.
Foothills residents have been concerned about the parking for years, especially during the winter as the cooler weather draws back the seasonal visitors who dominate the area.
The situation was exacerbated in spring 2015 when “no parking” signs were placed along 38th Place, a street which runs between the post office and 1st Bank of Yuma to the north, deadending at the western border of the two properties.
The Yuma Foothills post office is open from 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and the lobby and P.O. boxes are open 24 hours.