Historic Downtown Dallas Post Office Gets Face-Lift.

By Selwyn Crawford, The Dallas Morning News Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Aug. 3--Downtown post offices are going the way of the Pony Express in some places, but not in Dallas.

Here, the historic, ornate U.S. Post Office and Federal Building on Ervay Street is getting a multimillion-dollar face-lift in preparation for a zippy return to use.

Although Dallas postal officials plan to sell the five-story, Italian Renaissance-style structure, most post office functions -- from the sale of stamps to the rental of post office boxes -- will still take place at the site. Jim Mahoney / DMN A marble arch frames an old map of the city of Dallas at the downtown post office on Ervay Street.

The 190,000-square-foot building, built in 1930, has been closed since last year for remodeling. The Postal Service, which owns the building, won't disclose the cost of the renovation.

The retail postal services were moved to a temporary site on Dragon Street.

"It's a very important building for Dallas, especially for downtown," said Dwayne Jones, executive director of Preservation Dallas. "Not only is it important from the architecture standpoint, it's an important anchor in terms of what happens in the downtown revitalization. Downtown postal services have always been an important part of the vitalization of downtowns."

Sam Bolen, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman, said that details for the re-emergence of the Ervay Street post office have not been finalized.

"We cannot afford not to have a location downtown," Mr. Bolen said. "We'll return to the same operation of what was there before."

Nearly 20 years ago, postal officials sought to demolish the building -- which they own -- and lease the property to a developer who planned a 45-story office tower. That plan, however, never came to fruition.

Jim Mahoney / DMN The nameplate of U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, who once had an office in the building, sits amid other renovation debris. Judge Hughes swore in President Lyndon B. Johnson after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Closing a downtown post office, some people believe, has become a nationwide pattern by the Postal Service.

Kennedy Smith of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington said that over the last two or three decades -- particularly in smaller communities -- downtown post offices have been closed in favor of suburban locations. She said Postal Service officials cite economic and customer-convenience factors as reasons for the moves. But Ms. Smith, who praised Dallas postal officials for their decision, said her organization has held numerous meetings with the Postal Service about the issue and continues its fight to preserve downtown sites where possible.

"We obviously feel it's very important to have a post office in downtown locations because it serves people and it's a great traffic generator," Ms. Smith said. "Another reason they're important is because a lot of downtowns have picked up economically. And one of the reasons for that is because a lot of downtown businesses have learned to use the Internet to attract business. And what they need to ship their product is easy access to a post office."

Several options exist for the Ervay Street building when it reopens in early to mid-2003.

Casey Shires, a real estate broker for CB Richard Ellis Inc., which is handling the sale for the Postal Service, said one of the proposals is to use the first floor for the post office and retail space, and convert the upper floors to loft apartments.

Another proposal, Mr. Shires said, calls for the building to become a "boutique hotel."

"This is probably the most historically significant building in the city of Dallas right now," Mr. Shires said. "There's so much window space there. I think it's kind of neat to be able to build something on top of a post office."

The building's design and history set it apart from the Postal Service's two other downtown locations.

Its exterior is graced with intricate murals depicting the evolution of the Postal Service from the Pony Express through the early 20th century. Inside, it has marble walls with carved, arched entryways on either end of the building. Above the entryway are two more murals depicting the city of Dallas as it was when the building was constructed.

The building once housed the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, who gave the oath of office to President Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One soon after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Inside her courtroom today, her heavy, steel nameplate -- believed to have once marked her parking space -- sits unceremoniously inside a mail cart among other construction debris.

Mr. Shires said that he has received several offers on the building -- there is no set price -- and expects to receive several more in the next few weeks.

Most of them, he said, are local investors with an interest in a vibrant downtown and a sense of nostalgia.

"They're people who believe in downtown, and they believe downtown is making a comeback," Mr. Shires said.

He said they know it's important to have that post office because it still carries the original Dallas ZIP code, 75201.

"But," Mr. Shires added, "the post office is real proud of that building, and we're not just going to sell it to the first person with an offer. It's going to someone who has a worthy proposal for that site, because there's so much history there."

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(c) 2001, The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.