The U.S. Postal Service is seeking a buyer for the Lake Forest Post Office, a circa 1932 art deco building that's in the National Register of Historic Districts as well as one of Lake Forest's Historic Preservation Districts.
U.S.P.S. District Manager Robert Hart last week sent a notification to "postal customers" in Lake Forest, informing them that the Postal Service wants to sell its building and move retail operations to a smaller site in Lake Forest. The note does not specify where in Lake Forest it hopes to relocate. (Please hit the continue reading button for the full text of the note.)
"They are not committing to anything at this point," said City Manager Robert Kiely in an e-mail to GazeboNews. "By law, they will have to entertain proposals from any interested property owner and then evaluate them with input from the City." He said the U.S.P.S. wants to downsize from the 6,000 square feet it has at 230 Northgate Street to 2,000 square feet. He also said the U.S.P.S. has not yet listed the building, nor has it decided on an asking price. "They will be doing all the necessary due diligence studies before any listing (appraisal, survey, etc.)," he said. "They will be working with a real estate firm, but we do not know who at this point."
Photo of the Post Office in downtown Lake Forest, courtesy of Gunnar Soderlind
The Lake Forest Post Office has a long history. To find out more about the building, we turned to the experts: Gail Hodges of the Lake Forest Preservation Foundation; Stephen Vignocchi of the Special Collections/Archives department at Lake Forest College's Donnelley-Lee Library; Cathy Czerniak of the City of Lake Forest; and Robert Willms, former Postmaster from 1967-1990. Here is the information they shared:
- The Lake Forest Post Office was designed by architects Ralph Milman and A. S. Morphett in Art Deco style. Begun in 1932 and completed in 1933, it was the first government-owned post office in Lake Forest
- Construction cost was $60,000, according to Edward Arpee's "Lake Forest, Illinois." Prior to 1933, the Post Office was located where Helander's is today
- The Post Office is in the Lake Forest National Register Historic District. The National Register is the nation's highest honor for buildings of distinction. (For this reason, a certified renovation of the building may qualify for historic preservation tax incentives. These vary, depending on whether the owner is commercial or not.)
- When the Lake Forest National Register District was established in 1978, the Post Office did not then qualify for citation, as it was not yet 50 years old. It is now over 50 years old and does qualify within the Distict
- In the late-1980s-early 1990s, the important interior Art Deco lobby details were restored during a renovation by the government, at the urging of the LF Preservation Foundation. At a later date, the handicap access at the west side was added by the government
- Ralph Milman, a student of Howard Van Doren Shaw (architect of Market Square), also designed a number of other Lake Forest buildings and homes, including Deer Path School in 1954, for which he received a citation of merit from the American Institute of Architects
- Days after the Post Office opened in 1933, The Stentor reported: "The new Post Office building ... is in every respect an improvement over the old. The building was put up by Mrs. S. Lind on her property, and the upper story will be used as a dwelling."
Here is the text of the note sent to Lake Forest residents by District Manager Robert Hart:
"Dear Postal Customer:
"You may have heard that the Lake Forest Post Office, located at 230 Northgate Street, has been listed 'for sale.' The Lake Forest Post Office is NOT going out of business. Let me explain what we are doing to make better use of our real estate holdings.
"The Postal Service has more space than it needs to provide retail counter services to our Lake Forest, IL, customers. Maintaining this excess space adds to our operating costs (building maintenance, utilities, etc.). The retail operations for the Lake Forest area will be moved to another location.
"Before we begin any efforts to move out of the Lake Forest Post Office, we will need to sell the building at fair market value and move retail counter operations to a new location in Lake Forest, IL. If this sale comes to pass, there will still be a U.S. Post Office in Lake Forest where you can buy stamps, ship packages, rent a Post Office box, pick up certified and registered mail and packages if delivered when you're not home, as well as purchase our full line of mailing and shipping services.
"Let me emphasize again that the Lake Forest Post Office is NOT closing. If sale of the present Lake Forest, IL, Post office building occurs, residential and business customers will not notice any difference in the quality of their mail delivery service and they will still have convenient access to Postal Service retail counter services in Lake Forest."
Comments