Delayed Eagle Rock Post Office Finally Opens

The new Eagle Rock Post Office--delayed 10 months because of construction errors--opened this week.

The 32,000-square-foot post office at Figueroa Street and Colorado Boulevard cost the U. S. Postal Service $7.9 million to build. It is replacing two small post offices in the fast-growing northeast Los Angeles communities of Eagle Rock and Highland Park, which postal officials say had become inadequate for handling a vastly increased volume of mail.

The new post office has 1,929 post office boxes, more than three times as many as in the two other post offices. It also has 43 customer parking spaces, while the old post offices had no parking.

Work on the new post office was stalled between September, 1988, and May because the Postal Service said it discovered that a parking lot built to serve the building was too steep.

The lot was built at a 10% grade, twice as steep as Los Angeles city ordinances allow.

Postal officials replaced the architect who designed the project and the contractor who supervised its construction.

Another builder was hired this spring to regrade the lot at a cost of $914,686.

The Eagle Rock station will be open for several hours longer each day than were the two stations.

Its hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturdays. The post office box section is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

The new post office serves letter carriers for the Eagle Rock and Highland Park areas.

The old Eagle Rock station at 5000 Eagle Rock Blvd. closed Saturday. The station had been there since 1952.

The Highland Park station at 5930 N. Figueroa St. will remain open, but will be used only for mail collection, postal officials said.