The for sale sign in front of the Como Station post office is not a welcome sight for many area residents.
For those who might have believed the future of the U.S. Postal Service’s Como Station was secure, it was disconcerting to see a “For Sale” sign go up on the building in late August.
Five years ago, when branches were being closed, the facility at 2286 Como Ave. was considered vulnerable, but it survived those cuts.
Now uncertainty has returned because the Postal Service rents rather than owns the space it occupies, and the building’s owner has put it on the market with an asking price of $799,900.
“We have a lease through the end of 2015 that would be binding on a new owner,” said Pete Nowacki, spokesman for the Postal Service. “There are no plans to move or change the operations of the post office.”
The building had been home to auto repair and servicing businesses since at least 1933 when Harold “Buzz” McCann acquired it in 1960. His company, Statewide Engine Rebuilders, served the trucking industry. On the side, McCann worked on stock cars he raced at the Minnesota State Fair and elsewhere.
After fire gutted the structure in the late 1960s, McCann rebuilt, and the Postal Service began leasing the space in 1970.
(For the previous 40 years, the Como branch post office had operated around the corner at 2238 Carter Ave., today the site of Micawber’s Books.)
During the mid-1990s, McCann, then a resident of Hayward, Wis., tried to sell the building but was unsuccessful.
Cory Kingbay, the real estate agent listing the property, says McCann’s widow, Lorraine, now thinks it’s time to try again. He says he’s had a number of inquiries about the site from prospective buyers looking for locations for office, retail and restaurant operations.
