MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- With the $2.9 billion congressionally-approved funding the base is receiving over the next two fiscal years, Camp Pendleton will spend $6.1 million to construct a 23,000 square foot state-of-the-art mail processing facility.
The new handling facility is expected to replace the 66-year-old building still used by Marines today. The new distribution center’s groundbreaking is scheduled for August and is expected to be fully operational by the fall of 2010.
“Camp Pendleton’s Central Mail Processing Facility provides daily mail distribution throughout the base,” said Bob Song, architect, Public Works Department, Assistant Chief of Staff Facilities, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. “As many as 80 Marines are involved in the daily distribution process with mail that arrives on two 40-foot tractor-trailers everyday.”
Planned improvements include a customer service lobby for mail pick-up and 100-seat classroom for postal service training. Pendleton’s mail clerks can also look forward to a high ceiling sorting room, lounge and kitchen.
“The new facility will provide us the additional space required to stream line our operation,” said Chief Warrant Officer Donald J. Darling Jr., director and mail officer, Consolidated Post Office, MCB. “Our current building was not originally built for a post office, so the floor plan is not the best design for our needs.”
Parking for the facility replacing Building 1674 will include spaces for 58 personnel, four handicapped, and six tractor-trailers. Dynamic landscape and architecture elements are also expected with welcoming entry points.
“The new two-story facility will be efficient, dynamic and posses an exciting architectural design,” Song said.
In addition to aesthetic improvements, the facility’s 30 percent more energy efficient blueprint also received top ratings from the U.S. Green Building Council.
In conjunction with the postal facility construction, overall base improvements will create an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 jobs during the current economic recession, said Navy Cmdr. Rafael A. Lim, public works officer, Assistant Chief of Staff Facilities, MCB.
“This project was on the table when I reported to Building 1674 in 1986 more than 20 years ago,” Darling said. “This will make my career to see this new postal facility built!”