With national mail volume down 17 percent since 2006, the U.S. Postal Service (U.S.P.S.) is looking to save as much money as possible. Locally, the U.S.P.S. is now seeking buyers for its Midway Processing and Distribution Facility (PD&F) — which could signal the beginning of the end for the facility. “Mail volume has dropped dramatically over the past couple of years, and we don’t need all the space to process the mail anymore,” said U.S.P.S. spokeswoman Eva Jackson. The U.S.P.S. is teaming with real estate company CB Richard Ellis to conduct a “request for qualifications” to identify potential buyers for the facility, located at 2535 Midway Drive That process closes March 31. “They’ll review the submissions and evaluate them and see if there are any interested buyers that are qualified to purchase the facility,” Jackson said. Open since 1972, the Midway PD&F was once the main mail processing facility in San Diego. But its role has diminished since the Margaret L. Sellers Processing and Distribution Center opened in Carmel Mountain Ranch in 1993, making it the new main distribution center in San Diego. According to Jackson, the Sellers facility processes about 10 million pieces of mail every day — about 10 times that of the Midway PD&F. “It has come to the point where there’s so little mail volume that we don’t need to have those operations in two different facilities,” Jackson said. “We can combine them into one.” According to Jackson, the bulk of the mail that Midway PD&F processes is flats, which include magazines, periodicals and large envelopes. She said the main facility would easily be able to absorb that load. “We can easily do that up here. All first-class mail already goes through Margaret Sellers,” Jackson said. “This is where the main operation is.” Even though Midway PD&F also offers retail services and post office boxes, Jackson said its potential closure wouldn’t have a significant impact for local customers. If the facility closes, it would be replaced with a retail location in the Midway area. “We’re still going to offer retail services and P.O. box service. It may not be at that Midway Drive location, but it will be in the Midway area,” Jackson said. “And it would probably be a newer and more efficient facility.” Jackson estimates the savings from closing the facility — including maintenance, utilities, labor and transportation costs — at several million dollars a year.