On the market: Cottage Grove post office for sale

• Post office

The U.S. Postal Service is selling the main Cottage Grove post office before remodeling its second facility in town. Bulletin photo by Scott Wente

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Cottage Grove’s post office is on the market.

The U.S. Postal Service is trying to sell its main post office at 7130 East Point Douglas Road as it plans to move retail services and post office boxes to an annex facility on the west side of Highway 61.

The property is being marketed by Minneapolis-based real estate firm CBRE, which has posted a For Sale sign outside the building. The asking price for the nearly 5,800-square-foot facility is $375,000.

The postal service last year announced that it would move services to the annex facility and sell the main building on East Point Douglas Road, near 80th Street and Highway 61. It planned to renovate the annex at 7523 95th St. to include a customer service window and post office boxes. A few months later it delayed the consolidation because the postal service did not have cash to complete that project and others like it. Nationwide, the postal service has planned facility consolidations and employee layoffs.

In part a small sign of the postal service’s financial struggle, the agency will not begin renovating the Cottage Grove annex until it sells the main building on East Point Douglas Road.

“With the financial situation the way it is, we’re far more inclined to do something like this,” postal service spokesman Pete Nowacki said.

The post office was built in 1980. A CBRE flier advertising the property notes its quick highway access and that it could be used for a variety of purposes. It is zoned for general business use.

While the postal service plans to move forward with the Cottage Grove consolidation, no changes are planned to the St. Paul and Newport post offices, Nowacki said.

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