Land Swap Falls Through, Kills Hopes for Center

U.S. postal officials have turned down a deal to give the city 10 acres of prime real estate in the industrial district, saying that the plan was not in the “best interests of the Postal Service.”

The recent decision to scratch the proposal came just months after Postal Service and Bell officials hammered out a contract in which the city would have paid for construction of a $7-million to $9-million postal building in exchange for the land, city officials said.

However, the proposal was rejected late last month by the postal committee that oversees expenditures and land acquisition. In a letter to Annette S. Perez, the city redevelopment coordinator, postal officials said they could not part with the land because it may be needed for an automated bulk mailing center or other future expansions.

“This has been really frustrating,” said Councilman George Cole. “We’ve been working on this for more than three years and we thought we had a done deal. We were really ecstatic.”

City officials had been carrying on delicate negotiations for 3 1/2 years to acquire 10 acres of a 120-acre site that the Postal Service owns along Bandini Boulevard between Atlantic Boulevard and Eastern Avenue in Bell’s industrial sector. In return for the land, the city planned to pay for construction of the new postal building next to a mammoth bulk mailing center on the site.

With city funds tight and with almost no land left for development, city officials had hoped to build a gleaming commercial center on what is now a neglected, weed-filled corner of Postal Service land. The corner parcel, located just yards from the Long Beach Freeway, would have been one of the city’s most valuable pieces of real estate.

David Klement, a manager in the real estate division of the Postal Service who helped work out the contract with the city, said he had cautioned city officials that the document still had to be approved by the service’s Capital Investment Committee.

“From the very beginning, we’ve all been aware of the uncertainties of this proposal,” Klement said. “Never did anybody say this was a done deal.”

He said there is “absolutely” no chance that the proposal will be reconsidered.

City Manager John Bramble said: “This has been a major disappointment. We were really counting on this. It was going to be a major project.”

City officials for years have been tantalized by the federal land that lies in its industrial district. During the 1940s, the land was part of the 450-acre Cheli Air Supply base and was used to house military supplies. Since then the federal government has been gradually selling off parcels for public and private use, and city officials have been trying in vain to buy pieces for future development. In 1988, a city economic study identified the base as a prime site for retail development.