Two Landmark Southwest Atlanta Post Offices on Tuesday Closure List

Two southwest Atlanta post offices are on a possible closure list released Tuesday by the U.S. Postal Service.

The post offices at 2414 Herring Rd., in Cascade Heights, and 848 Oglethorpe Ave., in the West End, are among 3,653 local branches and stations under review, according to a news release posted Tuesday on the Postal Service website.

At the Cascade Heights post office Tuesday, residents said they were "shocked" and "disappointed" to hear the branch might close.

"That would be a great inconvenience, to say the least," said David Roberts, a retired Atlanta Public Schools assistant principal who has used the post office since moving from Hunter Street (now MLK Drive) to Lynhurst Drive 41 years ago. "They always have a line here. People really use this post office."

Lula Kemp said she is at the post office at least twice a week to buy stamps, mail letters and purchase money orders. Just last week, Kemp said, she mailed two large care packages to her nephew, who starts college in North Carolina next month.

Kemp said she would have to drive much further for her postal visits if the Cascade site closes.

"It will be an inconvenience for people in this community," Kemp said in the parking lot of the branch.

The move to close more post office locations is a response to a growing number of technology-based options for communicating and delivering mail, postal officials said Tuesday.

Neighborhood post offices now must compete with customers who "choose to conduct their postal business online, on their smart phones and at their favorite shopping destinations," the U.S. Post Office news release said. The competition has hit the service hard, with first-class mail business dropping 28% since 2007, Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal.

 “That's what pays the bills; that's what pays for six days of delivery," Donahoe said. "As you lose that, you have to make decisions. We're no different than any other business."