Alamo to get new post office

ALAMO — Construction is set to begin soon on a new post office more than double the size of the city’s current facility, which is so cramped that mail is sometimes stacked outside.

The new facility will provide better mail service, more post office boxes and a greater number of parking spaces, City Manager Luciano Ozuna said.

The city this month agreed to donate 2.6 acres of land it owns at Tower Road and Duranta Avenue for the new building. Mayor Rudy Villarreal said construction should begin within a month.

For four years the city has been trying to make headway in securing a new building to replace the current post office at Austin Avenue and Ninth Street.

The existing post office, which has been in its current building for more than 20 years, is less than 3,000 square feet, Ozuna said. It just is not meeting the needs of Alamo, which has doubled in population to more than 16,000 since 1990.

“It’s very small. As a matter of fact, they had to put in a double-wide trailer next to the post office,” Ozuna said. “They seem to be having a lot of problems there.”

The new 6,000-square-foot post office is expected to open in May, said City Commissioner Robert De La Garza, an Alamo letter carrier who is running for mayor.

De La Garza said the current building is so cramped that sometimes mail piles up outside until enough room can be cleared for it inside.

“It’s kind of hard nowadays … to come by federal monies to do projects such as this,” Ozuna said. “I think we’re very lucky to have them come and build a new post office during a time of so many government expenditures.”

De La Garza and Villarreal lobbied for the new facility last year on a trip to Washington, D.C.

Villarreal said Alamo would reacquire the land on which the new post office is planned if the government ever stops using it.

Because the U.S. Postal Service leases the building from which it currently operates, it likely will not use the old site. The city does not own that building and it’s not immediately clear what plans the owner may have for it.

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Ryan Holeywell covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4446. For this and more local stories, visit www.themonitor.com.