Downtown interests rally around post office facing closure

Almost 500 people sign a petition asking service to keep the branch open

President Jason Thiel of the Downtown Partnership started a petition in support of the postal branch.

By: Laura Graff | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: September 05, 2009

Downtown supporters are fighting to save their post office.

The U.S. Postal Service has added Winston-Salem's Center City Post Office, at the corner of Town Run Lane and Second Street, to the list of post offices around the country to be closed. Center City is the only Winston-Salem Post Office on the list.

Yesterday, the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership -- a nonprofit organization that advocates for downtown -- sent out a letter and petition urging the Postal Service to keep the branch open.

"The federal government should support services within downtown areas rather than removing services," the letter states.

As of 5 p.m. yesterday, almost 500 people had signed the petition.

Jason Thiel, the president of the Downtown Partnership, said that the partnership started the petition because "we wanted to make our voices heard."

"We wanted to just say that we don't want just to accept that it's going to be closing," Thiel said. "And so we wanted to see if we could make a difference."

The U.S. Postal Service is considering closing more than 400 post-office branches around the country in an effort to save money.

The Furnitureland post office on West Fairfield Road in High Point and the Greensboro Plaza Station post office on Banking Street in Greensboro are also on the list of possible branches to be closed.

The postal service plans to make a preliminary decision about which branches to close next month.

Thiel said that the partnership would keep the petition online for the next several weeks. The petition can be found off the partnership's Web site, www.dwsp.org.

The Web page also includes a link to e-mail the Hon. John E. Potter, the postmaster general of the U.S. Postal Service in Washington.

Gayle Anderson, the president of the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce, said that closing the downtown Winston-Salem post office could harm the efforts to revitalize and grow downtown.

"Having a downtown post office is critical for what we're trying to do in bringing downtown back," Anderson said.

"We see a lot of activity with housing, with the (Piedmont Triad) Research Park, and to us, a vibrant center city includes having that kind of an establishment.

"It's really important to the business community."

■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wsjournal.com.