By Hannah W. Wever

Published: April 17, 2008

Barboursville postal customers have been waiting for nearly two years to get a post office in their neighborhood. And although there have been a series of false starts and stops, a deal has finally been signed--in ink.
Orange County officials and United States Postal Service representatives have signed a lease agreement to put a postal service-owned post office modular building on county-owned land.
Back in March of 2006, a notice was sent to Barboursville postal customers that the post office would be closing due to well contamination and septic system failure. Postal operations were subsequently moved to the Somerset Post Office.
Negotiations between county government and USPS representatives have been ongoing in an effort to bring a post office back to the Barboursville community, but one deal after another fell through. Both parties attempted to secure deals to either renovate the existing building, or construct an entirely new building on an alternate site.
“The last piece of the hurdle was getting concurrence from the Virginia state historic office, because the post office will be in a historic area,” Paul Frye, U.S Postal Service real estate specialist said. 
Frye said the Postal Service expects to put a modular building on a site in front of the Barboursville Ruritan building.
“The post office is moving along,” Orange County Assistant County Administrator Julie Jordan confirmed. Currently, she explained, the county is working with VDOT to finalize paperwork and plans for an entrance upgrade.
Now that the lease is signed, Frye said, “The wheels will start turning and we’ll start to get something done. Our expectation is to have something open by the end of our fiscal year, which is September.”
Frye said the pre-fabricated building now bound for Barboursville has been stored among other USPS inventory for some time.
“It was in inventory that we had in Staunton,” Frye said.
The new building will be “ever so slightly” smaller than Barboursville’s old post office, according to Frye. Postal retail operations will be situated in the 13’4” X 56’4” modular structure, but mail carriers will not operate from that site, he explained.
“We’re not moving the carriers back into Gordonsville,” he said. Carriers work out of the Somerset post office currently, and will continue to operate from there.
The decision to have mail carriers work out of a remote site, he continued, is consistent with the Postal Service’s long range plans for the region—which includes high-growth Ruckersville. Frye said in the future, there will likely be a combined carrier annex facility set up for mail destined for the Barboursville and Ruckersville areas.