Copperopolis Post Office Eyeing Move To The Town Square At Copper Valley
Copperopolis, CA – Plans to relocate a Mother Lode post office are solidly in the works.
On Thursday US Postal Service spokesperson Evelina Ramirez confirmed to Clarke Broadcasting that the agency is currently in lease discussions with Copper Valley, LLC, which owns The Town Square at Copper Valley to move the Copperopolis post office from its current location at 405 Main St. (which is also part of OByrnes Ferry Road) within blocks of Highway 4.
Last November, the USPS issued a notice and a slated public meeting to solicit input on Dec. 5 at the current Copperopolis postal location. The 30-day comment period has since closed.
The notice indicated that the Postal Service was considering relocating its services to a yet-to-be-determined location as close as reasonably possible to the existing one since it had overgrown the facility. It also indicated that the new location would be over twice the size of the existing 1,280-square-foot building.
Just over 22-square miles in size, Copperopolis, whose first post office was established in 1861, counted 3,671 inhabitants at the time of the 2010 census, up from a population of 2,363 in 2000. In recent years following the wake of the Great Recession, the area has begun growing again, bringing more traffic past the existing tiny postal location which also suffers from cramped ingress/egress into its limited parking area.
Since nothing has yet been formalized and signed, Ramirez was unable to provide any further details such as whether the USPS was also considering other properties or what potential costs might be involved. She was not able to provide the operating costs of the current location.
CV LLC partners Tom Hix and Mike Fletcher were not available to further comment as to where in The Town Square at Copper Valley the post office might locate although Fletcher earlier shared the pair’s excitement at the prospect, seeing it as a natural fit for accessibility and convenience reasons, among others. Their plans for building out The Square are actively progressing with a 29-room hotel under construction and a suite of medical offices in the planning stages that Mark Twain Medical Center will be relocating to from its current Copperopolis location at Tulloch Shopping Plaza.
The Postal Service states it receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, relies on the sale of postage, products, and services to fund its operations, so it would ostensibly absorb all involved costs.
