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If you are one of the more than 10,000 service members and dependents who were used to picking up their mail at the Northside Post Office, Bldg. 426, you may have found yourself annoyed July 1 having to lug the kids and packages to and from the parking lot to the old base exchange.
On June 30, post office personnel and more than 100 volunteers moved and opened the new make-shift Northside Postal Annex in Bldg. 1101. What you may not know is the reason the 86th Communications Squadron, which runs the post
offices on Ramstein, relocated the Northside Post Office.
“In March, after inspectors determined the side of Bldg. 426 that NATO uses to house supplies was experiencing roof problems that could cause the ceiling to collapse, they noticed our side was dealing with the same issues, forcing a complete rebuilding of the facility roof,” said Tech. Sgt. Itzia Cuban, Ramstein’s Northside postmaster.
Together, with the help of nearly 300 volunteers, the 46 Airmen who work in the post office moved not only 10,500 mailboxes but all the shelves and track conveyor systems to support service members, civilians and dependents from around the KMC in less than 24 hours. But moving into the temporary facility hasn’t come without its hiccups.
“This building was all tore up when we first moved in. It has been abandoned since AAFES left and is still on a schedule for demolition, so there was plenty of cleaning up to do from the start,” said Staff Sgt. Jonathon Price, Ramstein’s Northside assistant postmaster.
After all the cleanup was completed and the doors were opened, the postal team discovered the facility and temporary move also presented new challenges.
“When we first moved in we could not get our machines used to collect postage to work with the building’s power and had to send customers to other post offices in the area to mail packages,” Price said. “We got that fixed, but now the distance between the parking lot and the building are causing some inconvenience to the customers.”
To try and remedy some of the inconvenience of carrying packages to and from the parking lot to the post office, the staff has purchased dollies but have still experienced complaints from customers.
“Some of the complaints from the customers showed us a different view on things, for example, the lack of handicap parking available at the new facility, but we ask they understand this move is only temporary,” Price said.
Now, more than a month into Bldg. 1101, the complaining has slowed but has now turned to questions as to when the postal team will be returning to their normal facility.
“Civil engineers say the work is progressing and we should be able to move back in early November,” Price said.
Unfortunately, that is right around the time U.S. Air Forces in Europe’s largest post office starts feeling the pressure of the holiday mail season, so timing may play a factor into when the move occurs.
“If they can finish the building and we can move back by Nov. 1, we will. But much later than that and we will have to stay until after the holidays due to the sheer amount of mail we will be handling at that time,” Cuban said.
The postal worker team say they are trying to incorporate some changes in the way they will handle mail receipt and delivery once they move back that should make the customers’ experiences better.
“I answer every complaint with either a phone call or e-mail, but we ask our customers to bear with us,” Cuban said. “We are doing the best we can to meet your service needs until we return to our normal facility.”
