Santa Monica Daily Press: Santa Monica’s historic post office building is back on the market. SkyDance Productions purchased the property in 2014 for about $27 million and has received entitlements to modify the building. However, the company has already outgrown the space and won’t occupy the site. The application to reuse the building included a remodeled interior and construction of … Read More
Historic Santa Monica Post Office Could Be Creative Space
surfsantamonica.com: Santa Monica’s U.S. Post Office on 5th Street, a legacy of the New Deal-era that was closed three years ago, might re-open as a “creative” office space under a proposal that adds a new building while also trying to preserve the site’s historic character. It will be short on parking, though. A new 14,490 square foot, three-story building (32 … Read More
Return to Sender: The historic Santa Monica post office under new ownership
Last year the Postal Service sold the historic Santa Monica post office to Skydance Productions, a film production company based out of Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. A couple of weeks ago, Skydance went to the Landmarks Commission seeking a Certificate of Appropriateness for an eight-foot-high “security”fence around the property. To justify the fence, the applicant and their legal representative said famous people frequenting the premises would … Read More
Film producer buys historic Santa Monica post office
Looks like historic post offices are becoming a fashionable trophy for Hollywood film producers. First Joel Silver (Mad Max, The Matrix) bought the Venice post office. Now SkyDance Productions (True Grit, World War Z) has bought the Santa Monica post office, which was closed back in June. Read more.
Parking Troubles Patrons at New Santa Monica Post Office (“It sucks”)
Santa Monica Lookout: "Five months after the US Postal Service shuttered Downtown Santa Monica’s 75-year-old post office, patrons are still adjusting. For many, that means doing their postal-related business at the new location, which the USPS opened on July 1, at Seventh Street and Olympic Boulevard… While the reviews of the new location — a former sorting station converted into … Read More
Film producer may buy historic Santa Monica post office
Looks like owning a historic post office is becoming a Hollywood fad. First producer Joel Silver (The Matrix, Die Hard) bought the Venice post office and turned it into a production studio and office. Now producer David Ellison (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, World War Z) is in talks to buy the Santa Monica post office. Ellison is at work on … Read More
Santa Monica considers preservation covenant on historic (former) post office
The historic Santa Monica post office was shut down on June 29, and now the Postal Service is preparing to sell the building. City officials are looking for ways to protect the building by creating a “preservation covenant” that would, according to City staff, “prohibit the purchaser of the property, as well as all future owners of the property, from undertaking any … Read More
Santa Monica’s New Deal Post Office on the Road to Repurposing
The Santa Monica Lookout reports today: "Despite losing the battle to keep Santa Monica's 75-year-old post office open, officials and residents are working to make sure the New Deal-era building sticks around a little longer. "City Hall, with the help of the Santa Monica Conservancy and the Landmarks Commission, is working closely with the U.S. Postal Service to make sure … Read More
Heritage organizations work to protect Santa Monica post office as a city landmark
The Postal Service closed retail operations in the Santa Monica post office in June, and the building will soon be up for sale. The city's Landmarks Commission is finalizing a proposed covenant for a meeting on August 12 that will protect and preserve the 1938 building. The Commission will recommend that the city accept responsibility for the preservation plan and enforce … Read More
Santa Monica activists plan rally to save post office building
Santa Monica activists plan to hold a rally Saturday at the city's post office at 5th Street and Arizona Avenue, a 1930s-era Moderne building that is set to be shut down. Members of the Santa Monica Conservancy, a preservation group, plan to stage the rally at 11 a.m. on what is scheduled to be the last day of operations at … Read More
The Postal Service gets a new real estate provider
The Postal Service has ended its contract with CBRE as the agency’s exclusive real estate provider. A few months ago, the Postal Service awarded a contract to a new broker, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). Los Angeles-based CBRE (aka CB Richard Ellis), the world’s largest commercial real estate firm, became the sole provider of real estate services for the Postal Service in … Read More
Inspector General Goes Postal
Peter Byrne, author of Going Postal: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein's Husband Sells Post Offices to His Friends, Cheap, has a piece in the East Bay Express about the new OIG report about CBRE's contract to manage the Postal Service's real estate portfolio. Byrne's report on CBRE was probably the motivation for the OIG's investigation, so his new article is well worth … Read More
Historic Plant City post office discontinued, headed for sale
Earlier this week, the Postal Service announced that the historic post office on Reynolds Street In downtown Plant City, Florida, is being discontinued. It’s the first such discontinuance in over 16 months. The Plant City post office has been closed since June 2013, when the Postal Service shut down the 1935 facility for an emergency suspension due to deteriorating conditions, … Read More
New OIG report faults USPS on post office relocations
The USPS Office of Inspector General has released a long-awaited audit report on the post office relocation process. The report faults the Postal Service on a number of counts — lack of transparency, not following postal regulations, the conflicting roles of the Vice President of Facilities — and it has already led management to promise to make some changes. The full … Read More
The corporatization of the Postal Service: Post office closures, suspensions, relocations, and reductions in 2013
One of the most persistent refrains in the debate about the Postal Service is that it needs to act more like a business. That means different things to different people, but for many, the model for where the Postal Service needs to go is to be found in Europe. In the EU countries, where the process of liberalization has been … Read More
Relocation, relocation, relocation: The new M.O. for closing post offices
The Postal Service may no longer be talking about closing thousands of post offices, but it has been busy “relocating” them. In dozens of cities across the country, a downtown post office is being closed and the building, often a historic landmark, is being sold. According to the Postal Service, however, the post office isn't actually "closing." Because a new, … Read More
