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Published on 06/15/1998 All articles from this issue

New post office construction bulldozes ahead

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Construction is under way for a new $2.8 million post office on Miramonte Avenue at Loyola Corners in Los Altos.

The project, with its 1,800-square-foot lobby, will be a "complete retail post office" as well as having a full post office box service, said John R. Hundley Jr., project manager.

That means "Bugs Bunny ties and packages of Scotch tape" will be for sale in addition to the regular component of stamps and postal supplies, Hundley said.

The Southern California-based Bernards Bros. Construction, the contractor on the project, does general construction, builds theme parks, schools, Circuit City stores and post offices, Hundley said.

Recently Bernards Bros. completed a new $2.4 post office in Fremont.

The Los Altos building, where a Safeway grocery store once stood, will be a low, horizontal structure with an "eyebrow canopy," said Joseph A. Kryszak, project superintendent.

Design review comes from the postal service, he said, and is still being finalized.

"The plans went back to Washington, D.C. for approval," he said. And some variances were needed, he said, on the post office criteria, that had to do with the square footage of the building.

Even though the federal government is not subject to a city's design review, the plans were passed across the desk of Los Altos planners.

Last summer, "We had a courtesy review of their preliminary drawings," said Los Altos Planning Director Larry Tong.

And "we provided them with some suggestions -- but just that. We don't have the authority to require them."

But Bernards Bros. did accept some guidance from the city for things like "going with historic lampposts and providing the potential for banners," Tong said.

The federal government has its own set of thresholds for environmental impacts, Tong said. The post office is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act, but to federal standards, which are "generally less stringent" than California's, Tong said.

The new post office will not replace the main post office downtown, Kryszak said. He said he expects the new building to open early next year.