Renovations at the Niwot Post Office

From June 17 through June 23, 2022, the Niwot Branch of the U.S. Postal Service closed for renovations. According to Adam Lambing, Sales Service Distribution Clerk, it took two days to move everything out of the building before the work could be started. "All of the flooring, from the front to the back of the building, was replaced," Lambing said. "It's an old building and there were several missing tiles."

Post Office officials chose to begin the renovations on June 17 in part, "because June 20th was a holiday and we had already planned to close that day," said Kanda Baum, Officer in Charge of the Niwot station. Placards were posted a week in advance to notify customers that they would need to pick up their mail at the Boulder Post Office located on 2995 55th Street during the renovations.

There was a special staging area and a Dutch door at the entrance to the Valmont station, where Niwot residents could retrieve mail without having to wait in line. The Niwot employees staffed the station. "Only 25 or 30 people took advantage of that," Baum said.

Not everyone in town was happy about the closure. "It would have been better if the pickup spot had been closer--Hygiene or Longmont," said Sales Service Distribution Clerk Rasik Patadia. "There were a few complaints about the distance." But others were not concerned. "I don't pick up my mail every day," Satir DeMarco said. "It didn't affect me, personally."

The Niwot Post Office building, located at 150 Murray Street, is owned by Niwot Postal, LLC, which is owned by Niwot historian Ann Dyni, who was key to getting the work accomplished. The building was already leased to the U.S. Post Office when Dyni bought it in 1990.

According to Dyni, the post office lease requires that the lessor "provide a healthy environment for workers." The floor tiles in the building, which was built in 1968, needed to be replaced because they contained asbestos. "I started talking about the problem with Post Office officials in Washington, D.C. four years ago, but I never heard back from them," Dyni said. "Then, in the early part of this year, I received a letter from the Program Manager Landlord Maintenance of the U.S. Postal Service saying I had six weeks to resolve the problem."

The contractor for the renovation, Major Asbestos Control, Inc., had experience mitigating asbestos, and they handled all the negotiations with postal officials. "Everything has to be tented," Dyni said. "They had to remove, not only the tile, but also the mastic holding it in place. That had to be scraped off, and that added probably another day to the work."

The history of the Post Office and the role it has played at the intersection of 2nd Avenue and Murray Street is fascinating. The current building at 150 Murray Street was built in 1968. Prior to that, the Post Office was located at 165 2nd Avenue until the mid-1930s, when it moved to the Niwot State Bank building at 102 2nd Avenue, now the location of PorchFront Homes. "The train station was just across Murray Street, on the east side of the tracks, and the postmaster could walk over to the train station to deliver the mail," Dyni said. The former postmaster, Eva Spangler, had lived in an apartment in the back of the building.

In March, 1967, U.S. Post Office officials decreed that the Niwot Post Office would become a Boulder substation, and Niwot residents would no longer have a zip code. "There was a huge protest," Dyni said. "Sylvia Knaus led the protest along with Earl [Knaus], who owned the Niwot Grocery in the current 1914 House building." The protest was successful - within one month Post Office officials announced that the decree was no longer valid, and the zip code was saved. "That represents a battle won by the small town of Niwot," Dyni said. When the current post office building was completed in 1968, the Niwot Post Office moved to its current location.

Dyni was delighted with the work accomplished by Major Asbestos Control, Inc. When the flooring work was completed, Baum, who is trained and authorized to drive the mail trucks, worked with Patadia to bring back nine cages of mail. "We got a lot of mail back, and the staff at the Post Office stayed very busy filling the mail boxes up," Lambing said.

When asked his opinion of the renovation, Patadia said, "It looks wonderful. It looks just wonderful." There are plans to have additional work done in the future, but that will not involve a closure.