The Postal Service has provided stakeholders with another list of the planned changes to the processing network. It’s the largest and most complete list so far. Combining the new list with a couple of previous lists yields a composite list that probably represents about 80 percent of the total consolidation plan.

We’ve been told that there will be 60 to 65 Regional Processing & Delivery Centers (RPDCs); the composite list has 56 RPDCs. The Postal Service has indicated that there will be 180 to 200 Local Processing Centers (LPCs); the composite list has 151 of them.

Some LPCs will be co-located with an RPDC in the same facility (it’s not clear how many because of duplicate names for separate facilities).  Overall, the composite list shows about 190 different facilities that will become RPDCs, LPCs, or both. Of these, the 56 RPDCs would be “gaining facilities” and about 135 P&DCs would be “losing facilities” that see some of their processing operations consolidated to the RPDCs. (The Postal Service doesn’t use this terminology anymore because the P&DCs that lose operations will usually “gain” a Sorting & Delivery Center so they’re technically not a “losing” facility.)

The latest notification list identifies several RPDCs in new buildings. In addition to the three that have already been leased and that will open soon in Charlotte, Atlanta, and Indianapolis, there are apparently plans to build another dozen. The Postal Service has previously indicated there would be about fifteen new RPDC facilities. This is the first news of where they might be.

These new facilities would be in Baton Rouge, Billings, Boston, Grand Rapids, Harrisburg, Las Vegas, Louisville, Phoenix, Rochester, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Orlando. The notification does not indicate if these new facilities will be built, purchased, or leased. Given that the first three new ones are in leased facilities, it’s a good bet that most of the others will also be leased.

The list does not show a few potential sites for RPDCs that have appeared on maps in USPS presentations, including Albuquerque, Fargo, and Montgomery.

Below are a map and a composite list showing the latest version of the changes. While it’s based on USPS lists, it is by no means an official list.

The USPS notification lists do not contain addresses for most of these facilities, so there may be errors in identifying the correct facility, and there are other mistakes and missing data points as well. For mapping purposes, the list uses the addresses for existing facilities in places where new ones are planned, at addresses yet to be determined.

The complete APWU presentation about the changes is here. The individual facility lists are here. View the composite list on Google Docs here (where it can be searched, sorted, etc.). On the map, red marks RPDCs and blue, LPCs.

(One additional note: After this article was posted, a reader noticed what may be an error in the USPS presentation materials, which had the RPDC in Grand Rapids, MI, with LPCs in Duluth, Waite Park, Eau Claire and Waite Park — all hundreds of miles away in Minnesota, on the other side of Wisconsin and Lake Michigan. They are all much closer to their more likely RPDC in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, so the table and map have been updated to reflect this change. The list has also been updated with a few other address changes.)

The network transformation involves moving some processing operations from current P&DCs to RPDCs. For the most part, this includes everything but destinating letters and flats, which will remain in the facility when it’s repurposed as an LPC.

Some of these consolidation activities are subject to Article 12 on excessing or abolishment and the requirements of Handbook PO-408, formerly the AMP study guidelines, now known as Mail Processing Facility Review. (More about that here.)

There are exclusions, however, that are not subject to PO-408 and Article 12, but apparently it’s a matter of interpretation. The APWU has drafted a national dispute concerning the Postal Service’s failure to follow the guidelines in PO-408 and the lack of negotiation with the union.

— Steve Hutkins

(Featured Image: Nashville P&DC)

For more about the network changes, visit our DFA/S&DC dashboard.

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