USPS selling Topeka downtown office, parking lot

By Associated Press - Monday, February 3, 2014

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - The U.S. Postal Service has told city officials it intends to sell its office building and parking lot in downtown Topeka.

In a letter addressed to Mayor Larry Wolgast and City Manager Jim Colson, Angela S. Kuhl, a USPS real estate specialist, said services will be relocated to a new location that hasn’t been determined, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported (https://bit.ly/1cNCii0).

The letter said people who disapprove of the decision can appeal in writing through March 3.

Topeka’s postmaster Sam Gonzales said at a public meeting on the proposed sale last month that there would be no layoffs under the plan, which moves positions to other locations in Topeka. Gonzales said about one-fifth of the 113,000 square feet of building space is used by the postal service, which only uses the ground floor. The two tenants renting space on the second and third floors - two rooms and three rooms, respectively - will leave by May 5, he said.

City Councilman Chad Manspeaker, who tweeted an image of the letter Monday, also said on Twitter the building once served as a courthouse, where the historic Brown v. Board of Education was tried.

Dave Smith, superintendent of The Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, said the organization had discussed holding educational programs in the former federal courtroom.

“Anything that we can legally do to ensure the public has access to that site would be desirable,” Smith said after hearing about the sale.