By Rachel Lippmann
St. Louis – The US Postal Service has sharply reduced the number of post offices in St. Louis that could be closed to eliminate the service's $7 billion deficit.
Thirty-eight St. Louis-area branches were on an original list of 677 nationwide the post office released in July. On Wednesday, the USPS reduced that to nine in St. Louis and 413 nationwide.
"Those offices were put on the list because the district wanted to have them looked at," said Valerie Hughes, the communications director for the USPS Gateway district. "It never was believed that all of them would be seriously reviewed or studied."
The nine branches will be evaluated on a variety of criteria before any final decision is made, Hughes said.
"Some of those include the revenue, the customer base, the proximity to another postal location, size of the building, number of employees, how it's going to affect the community, how it's going to affect the employees." And it's possible that none of the nine that remain under consideration will close.
The nine branches are in Baden, Berkeley, Crestwood Plaza, the Galleria, Midtown, Soulard, South County, and Tower Grove. Any final decision won't happen prior to October 2nd.