by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
After a year of looking, the United States Postal Service has found a suitable location downtown to move its services and post office boxes.
Ziba Salon on North Hogan Street will serve as the contracted downtown post office, performing general mailing functions and housing approximately 1,000 post office boxes. Krystal Bearden, customer service coordinator for the USPS in Jacksonville, said Ziba was selected after a lengthy search and application process.
“Several months ago, we sent a survey to the businesses in the downtown area to see if they were interested in serving as a contractor,” said Bearden. “Quite a few showed interest and went through all the steps. Ziba was the only business that fell in line with everything we needed.
“They were bonded, or could be easily bonded, they have the space and they were willing to take the number of boxes we have.”
As recently reported, the USPS is currently in the old federal courthouse and a tenant of the General Services Administration, which is in the process of vacating the building. By the end of the month, all of the federal judges, their staff and equipment and files will be out of the building and across the street at the new United States Courthouse at Jacksonville. The GSA plans to terminate the Post Office’s assignment May 31. By July 1, the old federal courthouse will be under the control of the City, which will use the building as State Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices in the new $211 million county courthouse complex.
Bearden said the USPS will relocate within the first week of June.
“We will move the P.O. boxes from the downtown station to Ziba June 6,” said Bearden. “All the services we have now, they will have.”
Bearden said no one currently employed by the Postal Service downtown will lose their job. Although Ziba owner Mona Ferdosian will hire her own people to staff the postal side of her shop, Postal Service employees will be assigned to other branches throughout town.
Bearden also said the USPS looked at length for another free-standing location downtown in an effort to not have to go the contract route, but couldn’t find a site affordable and convenient to customers.
Ferdosian said she saw the postal contract as an opportunity to venture into a new business, one that would benefit her financially and make it easier for current postal customers to have access to their P.O. boxes.
She also said her shop is large enough to accommodate both businesses.
“I have a big place and this is a good opportunity for me,” said Ferdosian, who has been downtown for about three years. “I am thinking about hiring two people, probably family, and make it a family business. I’ll hire people I can trust.”
Plans are to renovate her current space by shifting the salon back and installing the postal services in the front of the shop. Ferdosian said work should begin late next week.
“It’s perfect and good for most of the people who used the post office in the courthouse,” she said. “People tell me they don’t like having the post office in the courthouse, that it should be separate so they don’t have to show ID cards to get in. They are happy it will be here.”