Special Delivery

USPS Center's Computer-Aided Distribution Network to Serve as National Model

By Hal Cohen

The new 930,000-sq.-ft. USPS distribution center in Philadelphia will not only streamline and consolidate the city's postal service, it will create a new model for future facilities.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night may deter mail couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds - but an inefficient processing center can really gum up the works.

The 930,000-sq.-ft. U.S. Postal Service Processing and Distribution Center sits on a 50-acre site located in southwest Philadelphia's Eastwick section and is accessible to nearby Philadelphia International Airport and Interstate 95.

To ensure the smooth flow of letters, packages and parcels in and out of Philadelphia, the U.S. Postal Service has commissioned a new Processing and Distribution Center for the city to improve services while also cutting costs.

The 930,000 sq.-ft., $300 million USPS project sits on a 50-acre site located in southwest Philadelphia's Eastwick section and is accessible to nearby Philadelphia International Airport and Interstate 95. The new facility will replace Philadelphia's 70-year-old Main Post Office, which is located close to downtown across from the 30th Street Station.

Bill Powell, project contract manager at USPS, said the construction of the Philadelphia facility was in the works for almost two decades before any dirt was moved. But completion of the project, which broke ground in August 2003, is on track for November.

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The project's mission is to streamline and consolidate postal services for the city, Powell said. In the process, it will become the first urban processing center built to use computer-aided distribution networks, and Powell said it could serve as the model for future centers in major cities.

The state-of-the art workroom machinery, such as optical scanners and bar coders, is expected to gather, sort, bundle and direct about eight million pieces of mail daily.

Kling of Philadelphia designed the building, keeping in mind both the efficient circulation of mail and the thousands of workers soon to inhabit the massive building.

"It became natural to think of a separating, organizing element between the administrative elements and the workroom," Kling project director Richard Farley said.

For the general contractors, a joint venture of J.E. Dunn Construction of Kansas City and INTECH Construction from Philadelphia, construction has required "a little bit of everything," said Travis Noble, senior project manager from Dunn Construction.

"This is a great project in the sense that we are dealing with a lot of different types of construction in one project," Noble added. "It's an industrial area because of the fixed mechanization from the postal machines, there's a central plant for heating and cooling, a computer data center, a security vault and kitchen facilities."

The two sides and back of the $300 million U.S. Postal Service Processing and Distribution Center will be lined with 111 docks for mail trucks to pull up to drop off and receive shipments.

The support area, which is home to the center's administrative offices, cafeteria and employee locker room, is separated from the mail workroom by a large, variegated metal panel wall.

Skinned with smooth, silver metal panels and horizontal strip windows, the support building sits in front of the separating wall.

The look, which Kling designer Robert Little called "soft industrial," is similar to a modern, corporate office building. Little used the panels and strip windows to exaggerate the building's horizontal proportion.

"The metal panels provide a sleekness that could not be achieved in the same way with other materials," Little added. "The building would appear more massive then it actually is if brick or precast panels were used."

The administrative area features an atrium space that runs the full length of the support portion of the building, which Little said acts as "the circulation spine." The lobby and support services are on the ground level. An escalator leads to locker rooms on the midlevel and the cafeteria and its outdoor deck on the upper level.

Like the support area, the workroom is also a steel-framed facility with metal deck and concrete floors. The exterior is a corrugated, field-assembled, metal panel with exposed fasteners that works as a cost-effective solution to keeping with the industrial aesthetic. Structural bays in the workroom area are 50 ft. by 50 ft., running the height of the workroom, which is split between two levels. Although the entire facility is the same height, the workroom area is two levels while the support areas are split into three levels.

In the mailroom, speed becomes compromised with a vertical system of material movement. A one-level workroom would make for optimal efficiency, but the site selected does not allow for that layout, Little said. Instead the workroom is split among two-levels, each with floor-to-floor heights of 26 ft.

In addition to work areas, the three-story building will house the center's administrative offices, cafeteria and employee locker room.

The split-level workroom and its new machinery should provide a drastic boost in efficiency from the five-floor model currently used in the Main Post Office. Just as the circulation is designed to easily move mail throughout the building, getting it in and out of the building is of equal importance. The two sides and back of the workroom will be lined with 111 docks for mail trucks to pull up to drop off and receive shipments.

A curved area on the site that follows the bordering Lindbergh Boulevard was used for construction, freeing up additional room in the back used to space out loading docks and provide more maneuvering room for trucks. A new intersection near the facility is also being constructed to direct the flow of mail trucks and employees straight onto Interstate 95, shielding the center's vehicular congestion from local traffic.

Aside from digging up some existing foundations from when General Electric occupied the site, and removing and replacing a few areas of wet soil, construction has proceeded smoothly and is set to finish on time and on budget, said Brian Fuller, senior construction manager at Jacobs Facilities of Laurel, Md., which is handling construction management on the project along with Gilbane Building Co. of Arlington, Va.

Dunn Construction's Noble said that in fall 2004, about 500 workers were onsite. As construction is wrapping up, about half of that number is being used.

He said everything is right on schedule for the center to open in November and be fully operational by January 2006.

"Typically there's always something that screws things up," he added. "But we really haven't had any unforeseen issues. I just hope I don't jinx it."

Key Players

Owner: U.S. Postal Service, Arlington, Va.
Architect: Kling, Philadelphia
General Contractors: J.E. Dunn Construction, Kansas City, Mo.; INTECH Construction, Philadelphia
Construction Managers: Jacobs Facilities, Laurel, Md.; Gilbane Building Co., Arlington, Va.
Mechanization: IG Associates, Philadelphia
Geotech Services: Langan Engineering, Philadelphia
Fire Protection Services: Rolf Jensen & Assoc., Fairfax, Va.