Whittier

Postal service officials are searching for a site in east Whittier to open a new, 1,000-square-foot customer service branch. They are accepting bids on either existing space to be modified or vacant land where the facility could be built, Whittier Postmaster Anthony Scalise said. Officials want to locate the new branch on Whittier Boulevard between Colima Road and the city line at Valley Home Avenue. Scalise said it will be a “non-personnel” branch, with several hundred post office boxes, an automated stamp machine and mail slots, but no walk-up windows.

Bids will be closed at the end of this month, with site selection expected sometime this fall. No date for the facility’s opening has been set. Once completed, it will become Whittier’s fifth and smallest postal outlet, said Scalise, who works at the city’s 100,000-square-foot main post office on Michigan Avenue.

Several years ago, the U.S. Postal Service closed a branch on Scott Avenue just south of Whittier Boulevard, triggering protests from eastside residents.