The Downtown Bloomington post office has abruptly closed three weeks ahead of schedule, leaving downtown merchants and residents without access to its facility ahead of the postal service’s busiest week of the year.
Several customers were observed Thursday approaching the postal facility at 400 N. Center St. only to see a sign posted on the door which directs customers to instead go to the Bloomington Sorting and Distribution Center at 1511 E. Empire St. or to the Normal Post Office at 200 W. North St. for mail services.
The downtown post office was scheduled to be relocated a few blocks away to the 300 block of North Main Street as the Market Street parking garage in which the office is housed gets demolished to make way for a new Connect Transit transfer center.
That post office relocation has been delayed, while the closure of the North Center Street location came quicker than expected and without warning.
The U.S. Postal Service signed a 10-year lease to occupy a portion of the building at 300 N. Main St. where Red Raccoon Games is located, said Jamie Mathy, who owns the business and the building.
“I think people would really be shocked to see how busy this post office stays consistently,” Mathy said. “The fact that it’s only ever been staffed by a single person downtown has to make it an incredibly efficient operation for them, just the volume of packages going out all the time.”
Downtown customers were informed via letter Nov. 5 that the postal facility would be suspended at the close of business on Dec. 31, citing structural issues with the parking garage. The letter said all post office boxes at that location would be relocated to the SDC 2.3 miles away.
Mathy said the USPS had planned to move into the new space by last April, but the project was delayed. Mathy said the postal service informed his two weeks ago that the reopening has been pushed to next August.
Mathy said the post office has not shared a reason for the delay, but he suspects rising construction costs are a factor.
“When they signed the lease with us originally in October [of 2024], they had a budget in mind and that budget just got blown out of the water because of the increased prices of construction materials, so they’ve been struggling for how to build what they want to inside of the budget they were given.” Mathy said.
Mathy said the postal service has not indicated why the closing date at the North Center Street location was moved up.
Attempts to reach Bloomington postmaster Nicole Moore have been unsuccessful.
The post office relocation to the Sorting and Distribution Center also creates a hardship to those who lack their own transportation. Connect Transit’s bus services do not go directly to the facility. It’s on a frontage road just off a four-lane highway.
Despite the delays, Mathy said he remains confident the new post office relocation will happen.
“I hope it happens sooner than later. It’s better for downtown and for the business of downtown and the residents of downtown if that post office gets open as fast as possible,” Mathy said.
