From The Ground Up

Address: 500 W. Chestnut Expwy., behind the main post office

Owner/developer: U.S. Postal Service

General contractor: DeWitt & Associates

Architect: CMA Architects, of Minneapolis, and Hood-Rich Inc., of Springfield

Size: 53,000 square feet

Construction cost: $5 million

Estimated completion date: mid-September 1998

Description of project: This new facility is designed to speed up delivery with an additional bulk-mail area, bar-code sorting and a small parcel and bundle sorter. In construction and appearance, it will be "basically the same type structure, with the pre-stressed panels, and with the same appearance as the existing building," said Gene Bolin, Postal Service manager of in-plant support and expansion project manager. He said matching the appearance of the two structures has been a challenge, since the aggregate used in the pre-stressed panels is a different color now having been mined from a deeper level than it was 10 years ago when the Main Post Office was built. "The architects have had a hard time matching it," Bolin said, but they have risen to the challenge.