The U.S. Postal Service opened a new regional processing facility this month near Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the first new centers planned as part of a $40 billion overhaul of the nation’s mail delivery system.
The Postal Service leased the 622,000-square-foot warehouse at 524 Scalybark Road in Gastonia, a property that NorthPoint Development completed last year.
The processing center is one of an estimated 60 new facilities the Postal Service plans to open over the next decade. The agency intends to deploy a combination of owning and leasing industrial properties as part of its system overhaul. Some leased properties will require extensive capital improvements, according to federal regulators. The Postal Service is also likely to repurpose some of its existing properties to the new format.
In addition to the new sorting centers, called Regional Processing and Distribution Centers, or RPDCs, the Postal Service's $40 billion investment plans include the purchase of new postal sorting equipment and new electric vehicles. The 10-year plan developed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was announced in 2021 and is intended to help the agency compete with private delivery companies such as UPS, FedEx and DHL.
“These new RPDCs will allow USPS to better use resources — including space, staffing, processing equipment and transportation — to take advantage of state-of-the-art technologies that process mail and packages more efficiently, while also creating brighter, cleaner and more modern workplaces for postal employees,” Postal Service spokesman Philip Bogenberger said in an emailed statement to CoStar News.
The 60 new RPDCs would be the largest type of facility in the Postal Service’s new system and would be tasked with sorting mail and packages to be sent to other regions, according to the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service. The RPDCs are intended to serve as the Postal Service’s hubs for long-distance transportation.
The agency spent about $86.7 million to configure the Gastonia industrial warehouse to the RPDC format, according to a March report by the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission.
In addition to the Gastonia facility, which serves the Charlotte region, the Postal Service plans to open three more regional processing facilities this year in Atlanta, Chicago and Richmond, Virginia, Bogenberger said.
The Postal Service is in the design phase for 11 planned regional processing centers, including additional facilities for the Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago and Richmond areas, Bogenberger said. The remaining facilities in the design phase are located in Houston; Indianapolis; Greensboro, North Carolina; Santa Clarita, California; Portland, Oregon; Jacksonville, Florida; and Boise, Idaho.
One RPDC in the Atlanta area is a 1 million-square-foot warehouse at 700 Palmetto Logistics Parkway in Palmetto, Georgia. Ares Industrial Real Estate Income Trust acquired the property in August 2022 for $81.6 million from the developers, Hardie Real Estate Group, CT Realty Investors and Prudential’s PGIM.
The following facilities are under consideration to be occupied by the Postal Service as RPDCs, according to documents provided to the American Postal Workers Union and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Bogenberger declined to provide a list of the specific property locations under consideration as RPDCs or that are in the design phase.
· 4600 Aldine Bender Road, Houston.
· 7007 NE Cornfoot Road, Portland, Oregon.
· 5801 Technology Blvd., Sandston, Virginia.
· 28201 Franklin Parkway, Santa Clarita, California.
· 2001 Dixiana Road, West Columbia, South Carolina.
· 80 County Road, Jersey City, New Jersey.
· 1921 Elvis Presley Blvd., Memphis, Tennessee.
· 5500 NW 142nd St., Miami.
· 25 Dorchester Ave., Boston.
· 1001 California Ave., Pittsburgh.
· 2400 Orange Ave., Cleveland.
· 1401-1551 W. Fort St., Detroit.
· 1420 Gardiner Lane, Louisville, Kentucky.
· 841 S. 26th St., Billings, Montana.
· 2201 S. Cole Road, Boise, Idaho.
· 3775 Industrial Blvd., West Sacramento, California.