At the south branch of the Oak Park Post Office on Oak Park Avenue, quarters are so cramped they have to store pre-sorted mail on the loading dock in back.

Once the six employee parking spaces in back are gone, 30 other employees must jockey for the same metered spaces as the customers.

The mail trucks are parked in back in tandem.

That's why south station manager George Stuper is thrilled at the prospect of relocating next year to a modernized site with a larger work space and free parking for customers and employees.

"We've been waiting for this for 10 year," Stuper said.

Delivering the mail is a growth industry, he said, and the south station, built in 1957, became to cramped long ago.

The post office could move to a new facility on Garfield, between Wenonah and Maple Avenues next to the train tracks, in December 1999, said Ronald Pusateri, postmaster general.

While postal employees laud the new facility, relocation may not be welcome news to area residents and businesses that feed off of the traffic generated by the post office.

Location critical

"I think the location is critical to the south town business district, and it's a quality of life issue for people who live here," said Michael Nevins who's started an information campaign to alert residents of the move and potential impact it would have on the neighborhood.

"If you take away the post office, how many potential customers have you just lost?" Nevins asked.

Nevins, a stay-at-home dad, doesn't own a business on south Oak Park Avenue. He just likes being able to walk to the post office, the dentist, the bakery and the train station, and he suspects others do too.

"You put all of those things in one location, you're required to walk there," Nevins said. Relocating the post office to a relatively remote area "takes away from the quality of urban life here.

"To me, it's a quality of life issue. If I wanted to live in Naperville where I can drive to post office, I'd move there."

The potential move is not for certain as postal officials are still negotiating with the village to acquire a portion of the Maple Avenue land, which the village owns.

Nevins hopes the delay will give residents time to pressure the post office and village officials into working out a compromise. Nevins is calling for a compromise in which the post office could keep the south station open as a service station and use the new facility to sort the mail and carry out any other duties.

Nevins said he realizes the need for a modern postal station. But residents don't really care where the mail is sorted. They care about service and convenience.

"It doesn't make good business sense to operate two facilities within a four block area," Pusateri responded. "We're in business like everyone else."

The post office leases the current space and would not be able to guarantee the Oak Park Avenue station will remain open, he added.

The proposed Garfield station will house stamp machines, a postal retail store offering prepackaged merchandise and three times the number of postal boxes currently at south station, which has a waiting list for boxes.

Unlike the present station, the new site will be accessible to the disabled.

The new facility will be 19,000 square feet, compared to the 3,500 square feet at the present location, which provides enough floor space for carriers to sort mail for 20 routes.

The post office handles enough mail to have 23 routes. The extra mail is spread out creating "overburdened routes," Stuper said.

"That results in later delivery and cost for overtime," he added.

At the new facility, there will be 34 employee parking spaces, 32 customer spaces plus individual slots for mail trucks.

"I can see people who live nearby and walk pass here, they'll lose that convenience," Stuper said. "I can't help but to think a more efficient facility will benefit the community."

"We're going to do everything to make it a better facility for our customers and our employees. It's long overdue. Our people deserve a lot better than they have now," Pusateri said.