Right on Time: Kernersville opens new postal station as avalanche of holiday mailing hits

Credit: Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer

At the post office on Patterson Avenue in Winston-Salem, a van of packages and letters waits to go out.

By: John Hinton | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: December 16, 2008

KERNERSVILLE

For postal workers, it is the busiest time of the year.

Of the 19 billion letters, packages and cards that the U.S. Postal Service expects to deliver between Thanksgiving and Christmas, about 960 million of them were being processed yesterday.

In Kernersville, Efrain Mercado passed by the Kernersville Post Office and stopped instead at a new postal station in the Gateway Plaza to mail two packages and his Christmas cards.

"I just drove by that post office, and it was packed," he said.

The Gateway station is intended to relieve overcrowding at the post office on West Mountain Street, said Allison Grose, the Kernersville postmaster. It opened on Friday, and an open house yesterday drew about 100 people, Grose said.

The postal station employs 10 people and offers customers every traditional service except post-office boxes, said Tony Alford, the owner of Gateway Plaza and contractor for the postal station. It is tucked into a Juicy Java café.

"We are the first we know of with a coffee shop and a post office," Alford said. "People can come in and watch television and eat. It makes waiting in line a little more bearable."

The postal service chose Alford's bid for the post office in November over two other bids, he said. The open house was timed to coincide with the busiest mailing day of the year.

Customers want to meet the deadlines for mailing letters, Christmas cards and packages, Grose said.

Today is the deadline for mailing packages parcel post to ensure delivery by Dec. 25. The deadline for first-class mail delivery is Dec. 20. Express mail is guaranteed for delivery if it is in the mail on Dec. 23.

Postal employees will work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to make sure that packages arrive in time, Grose said.

The postal service is competing against other carriers such as FedEx Corp. and UPS.

"We want to grow our parcel-package business," Grose said. "Time after time, our services are cheaper, we get our packages there the same time they do."

■ John Hinton can be reached at the 727-7299 or jhinton@wsjournal.com.

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