The residents of Palm Desert will soon have to drive to a new location to pick their mail and buy stamps, the United States Postal Service office on Portola Avenue will close and open a new office at an address that is yet to be decided.

It was a packed lobby at the postal service station in Palm Desert, as USPS officials informed residents the office will have to move before August 2020.

Dean Cameron is Real Estate Specialist at the USPS, he said the agency leases the building and the owners have other plans for it.

“They will not be renewing our lease because they have plans to redevelop this site,” Cameron said. “Right now it just looks to rent a 5,000 square foot space.”

Cameron said the postal service is looking at possible locations North on Portola, South on Fred Waring, East on Cook Street, and West on Town Centre Drive.

The location on Portola Ave. and El Paseo opened in 1970, many of the residents at the meeting felt they have cultivated a sense of community in that location. A local business owner, Joe Hammer, gets his mail delivered at the Portola station and he worries his business will be affected if he has to change P.O. Box number or zip code.

Hammer said, “All of your contacts anywhere from the Internal Revenue Service down to your local pool service everything comes to our P.O. Box.”

A change of his P.O. Box number or zip code would mean contacting every single one of his customers, but Cameron assures that information will not change.

Hammer said, “We physically move the PO Boxes from their location and relocate them into the new facility.”

Besides P.O. Box concerns, residents brought up changes they would like to see such as more service windows, 24 access to their P.O. Boxes, a new location that is not too far and to keep the familiar faces.

Portola Ave. Postal Service to Move Its Location