The United States Postal Service (USPS) is in negotiations with a buyer for the abandoned Midway Post Office site, once the central mail processing and distribution facility for all of San Diego County.
But USPS isn’t divulging any details.
“The USPS is in contract with a potential buyer for the Midway Drive facility located at 2535 Midway Drive,” said postal spokeswoman Eva Jackson. “We are still in the due diligence phase, and expect the deal to close within the next few months.”
“I confirmed with the USPS district manager that the property has been sold to a consolidator of some kind, and that the USPS will be emptying out the remaining equipment for the new tenant in the next couple of months,” said Sarah Czarnecki, Congressman Scott Peters’ senior field representative. “They are contracting out someone to do maintenance on the landscaping of the property in the meantime. I also encouraged the manager to have the new owner reach out to community groups to introduce themselves.”
About six months ago, an online auction was held at www.proxibid.com/aaapublicauction for the contents of the former postal building. Proxibid provided online bidding for AAA Public Auction’s United States Postal Service District Hub Auction. The sale featured USPS collectibles and various types of machinery.
No matter how the abandoned Midway Post Office ultimately is redeveloped, local planners want it to jibe with their community plan now being updated.
Previously, Melanie Nickel, chair of the Midway Community Planning Group (MCPG), said the draft community plan lists an office park as the “first choice” for redeveloping the former postal site. She added there’s also an existing need for office space in the area, and for companies working with SPAWAR (Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command) in Point Loma.
Nickel has previously said MCPG, which makes recommendations to the city on land-use for the Midway District, a hodgepodge of commercial, industrial, office, limited residential and warehouse land uses, wouldn’t mind “some kind of mixed use … or a residential senior center,” on the abandoned postal site.
“We want to be sure that whatever goes there does not make local traffic any worse than it already is,” Nickel said.
Midway planners have also said they want to see the redevelopment of the old postal building and environs acknowledge its aviary roots, being located in the Dutch Flats Urban Village. Dutch Flats was once the testing grounds of San Diego aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh.
Nickel suggested the nod to the site’s historical nature could take the form of “open space or an historic plaza on the property dedicated to Dutch Flats and Lindbergh,” rather than the establishment of  “a museum or gift shop” onsite.
“We have no recommendation about whether the building remains or is torn down as part of a bigger project,” Nickel said previously on behalf of MCPG, noting any new construction “would have to observe the 30-foot height limit.”