Rolling Meadows postal branch closing May 26

Due to a lease dispute, the Rolling Meadows postal branch at 3266 Kirchoff Road is expected to close Saturday, May 26, postal officials said Friday.

This emergency suspension is outside the long debated option of closing up to 252 mail processing centers and 3,700 post offices across the nation to save the U.S. Postal Service approximately $6.5 billion per year.

On Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill to both delay the implementation of that plan as well as to allocate an additional $11 billion to the financially struggling Postal Service.

But though no postal facilities in the North, Northwest or West suburbs have ever been on the list for possible closure, current finances did play a role in the Rolling Meadows closure, Postal Service spokesman Sean Hargadon said.

“What's unique is our financial situation is so severe,” he said. “Our flexibility is gone.”

Arlington Heights Postmaster Elizabeth Wulf said in a news release Friday that “the Postal Service and the owner of the Rolling Meadows building were not able to come to an agreement on lease terms. Therefore, we are transferring all retail services to Arlington Heights.”

Post office box customers at the Rolling Meadows branch will be required to change their addresses to street delivery or to a post office box at a neighboring post office, Hargadon said.

A change of address form is available online at usps.com or from local post offices to assist customers in notifying their correspondents of the change.

Though the Arlington Heights Post Office at 909 W. Euclid Ave. is the nearest and the one Postal Service officials are recommending to Rolling Meadows customers, full retail services are also available at the Meijer Store at 1301 Meijer Drive in Rolling Meadows.

Other post offices and branches within five miles of the current Rolling Meadows location are those in Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, Mount Prospect, Palatine, Prospect Heights and the Woodfield branch at 651 Mall Drive in Schaumburg.

All Rolling Meadows post office box deliveries without a forwarding address will be available at the Arlington Heights Post Office for pickup in general delivery until the expiration of the current post office box rental agreement.

Rolling Meadows city and chamber of commerce officials could not be reached for comment on the closure Friday morning.