Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Atlantic Street post office for sale - what the?

I was driving back to work from Layla's Falafel yesterday when I noticed something new at the Atlantic Street post office.


Do you see it? Hold on, I'll pull a CSI and "enhance."


Yup, our historic 1916 post office is for sale. The listing on the Cushman & Wakefield website (scroll to #10) doesn't list a price, but it describes the post office thusly:

"The potential for this unique site is significant. There are virtually no available sites that offer such a prime location in such a recognizable, iconic building in Stamford’s Central Business District. This exceptional property’s possibilities will be limited only by the purchaser’s vision."

(It's worth noting that the equally beautiful 1917 Greenwich Avenue post office is for sale as well. I'm sure it'll make a very nice insanely expensive boutique store.)

There was a story a few months ago about how the USPS wanted to combine and consolidate the Atlantic Street and Ridgeway locations, but I thought the Atlantic Street building was going to become part of Tresser Square (PDF), a mixed-use development that's currently on hold due to the economy. I guess Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe didn't feel like waiting around, especially considering how many local projects have evaporated in recent years (City Place, The Luxe, Greyrock Place, etc.).

I was going to make a "going postal" joke, but I didn't want to just mail it in.

4 comments:

jolly said...

i thought they were building a ritz on that site? the post office was going to be a restaurant. FD Rich and co were behind this. waiting for trump parc to sell before they had enough money to push ahead. been stalled since 2008once it was realised that economy was struggling and trump was not selling.

anyone know what is goingon with highgrove?

Streets of Stamford said...

That's correct; that corner was supposed to be the Ritz project, which would incorporate the post office as a restaurant. Before this, the last thing I heard was that the Ritz was on "indefinite hold." Now that the post office is for sale independently, who knows where that leaves the Ritz.

As for Highgrove, it doesn't look like anybody is living in it yet. That building has been delayed repeatedly, so who knows what the heck is going on over there??

Anonymous said...

why don't they consolidate all of the other post office branches into atlantic street. its large enough to be the only post office. why save a post office you can find anywhere and get rid of a unique piece of history you can find only in stamford?

Streets of Stamford said...

There was a proposal floating around a while back to consolidate the Atlantic Street and Ridgeway post offices at another location, but any changes to the USPS have to go through Congress, so you can be sure that we won't see this happen any time soon!