What’s New and Exciting in Villa Park? ZIP

Orange County’s smallest city is getting some new ZIP. Its very own, in fact.

Even though it incorporated as a city more than 30 years ago, Villa Park has begrudgingly had to share a ZIP Code with its much bigger neighbor, Orange.

Getting a new five-digit identity--yet to be revealed--is making city officials smile.

“We’re real excited about it,” City Clerk Kaysene Miller said.

This city of about 6,300 residents now shares a ZIP Code--92667-- with Orange, population of more than 110,000, which wraps around tiny Villa Park.

Longtime residents of Villa Park remember well that their little city was founded in 1962 mainly to escape annexation by Orange. To those old-timers, sharing a ZIP Code with Orange has been an indignity that they have fought to remedy.

“I’ve been on the City Council since 1990, and getting our own ZIP Code has been an issue before the council in all those years,” Bob Bell said. “We’ve been battling a long time.”

Bell, a real estate broker, said there are sound business reasons for Villa Park’s wanting its own number.

“ZIP Codes are used for many, many statistical reports,” Bell noted. “It’s a major way for gathering information, including about insurance and real estate. So here in Villa Park we’ve been included with another city when that information was gathered. The [current] real estate information doesn’t reflect Villa Park as a separate city. Villa Park [housing] values are at a nice level--they’re high. So being included with another city dilutes the reporting about housing values in Villa Park.”

The shift to a new ZIP Code, which will become official July 1, will not involve changing numbers on a post office building. This is because Villa Park doesn’t have a separate building for a post office. The city’s postal facility is inside the Villa Park Pharmacy at 17871 Santiago Blvd.

Bob Brodsky, 28, the manager of the pharmacy, said it’s been a family tradition to have stores and post offices linked together. Brodsky said his father, Jim, who owns the pharmacy, had grown up with the post office-pharmacy connection.

“My dad’s father owned a pharmacy with a post office in it back in Wisconsin,” Brodsky said.

Brodsky added that he is very pleased that Villa Park soon will have its own ZIP Code.

“It gives us our own identity,” he said. “It really separates us from Orange.”