BOISE, Idaho — The United States Postal Service is planning on relocating the post office on Collister and State Street in Boise and now surrounding neighbors are fighting to keep their neighborhood post office open.
According to the United States Postal Service, "Due to loss of the building lease, the Postal Service is considering relocating the Boise Collister Station at 4650 W. State Street to a yet-to-be-determined location. The Postal Service would continue retail operations at the current location until the new station is up and running."
Suzanne Stone is the president of the Collister Neighborhood Association and said while this neighborhood post office on State Street may be small, there is always a steady stream of customers.
"The reason we are most concerned is this helps service 16,000 residents just right here in the local area," Stone said. "They handle 26,000 packages a year."
But neighbors may have to find a new location to mail their letters and packages, which Stone and other neighbors say this move would put a strain on the community.
"I run a mail-based business," Perri Capell, who lives in the Collister neighborhood, said. "I sell on eBay and other websites and I send out packages every day to customers and I drive down here at least once or twice a day, every day. I could fall behind, which would harm my business, my eBay ratings, and I would probably drive to Eagle, which is at least five miles away."
Stone added that many neighbors walk to this post office as they can no longer drive.
"Our Good Samaritan home is just right here and there is another home just on the other side of the parking lot here and folks really use this that are limited to pedestrian use," Stone said.
We reached out to Argonaut Investments, who own the Collister Shopping Center. They told KTVB that: "The landlord recently signed a lease extension with the post office through 2022 and has every interest and intention of keeping the post office as a tenant in the Collister Shopping Center. Furthermore, this press release comes as a surprise. We have reached out to the post office in hopes of clearing up this matter and work through long term tenancy to continue to service the needs of the Collister community."
KTVB asked USPS about the lease discrepancy and they said, "We are exploring all alternatives" in a text message.
The USPS will be holding a meeting on November 26 at 10:30 a.m. at the Collister Library, where neighbors are welcome to show up and voice their concerns.