After years of requests for improvements, Vail and Avon post office parking lots receive upgrades

After falling into disrepair from years of neglect, the Vail and Avon post office parking lots are finally seeing some restorative efforts.

Both lots will have their potholes filled in by the Minturn-based asphalt company Sun-Up Sealcoats this week. The repairs on Vail’s lot were “75% complete” on Friday evening after a day of work, according to Ben Barron, the company’s founder and owner. Work is supposed to commence on the Avon lot on Tuesday.

Barron grew up in Avon and attended Vail Mountain School, so he is well-versed in the parking lots’ challenges.

“(The lots) haven’t been touched since I was in elementary school, at least, and that was going on at least 15 years ago,” he said.

From the broken window in Vail to trash piling up to abandoned cars in the lots to “everybody breaking their back on the parking lot,” the post offices have faced a number of issues, Barron said.

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In Avon, a foot-deep pothole has festered for years. “Basically you needed four-wheel drive, almost, to get out,” Barron said.

Barron’s goal is to restore “smooth rolling over the parking lot once again.”

Vail, Avon leadership ask for federal support in conversing with Postal Service

The post office parking lots belong to the U.S. Postal Service, making them federal property. As a result, the towns are not permitted to maintain the lots even if they wanted to. Last winter, the town of Vail repaved the town’s property at the post office lot’s entrance and turnaround, but could not touch the lot itself.

Vail and Avon leadership has clashed with Postal Service leadership several times in the past over several issues, from post office maintenance to lost packages and slow service. The Postal Service’s operations in Colorado mountain towns has, time and again, been proven lacking.

In March 2023, Avon joined a coalition of mountain towns seeking legal guidance in its dealings with the postal service.

Things came to a head in Vail last February when the post office left a hole in its front window unrepaired for more than six weeks and simultaneously failed to replace several cluster mailboxes around town after they were accidentally damaged by snowplows, leaving residents unable to use the boxes.

Avon and Vail town staff and council members have been in touch with the area’s federal representatives, including Rep. Joe Neguse and Sen. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, about their concerns regarding the Postal Service.

Vail Town Manager Russ Forrest “has worked with Congressman Neguse’s office to help bring attention to the maintenance issues here in Vail. The town (of Vail) also sends letters directly to the U.S. Postal Service, and (Forrest) has had contact with the postmaster here,” according to Kris Widlak, Vail’s communications director.

In December, Neguse, Bennet and Hickenlooper and Rep. Brittany Pettersen penned a letter to the postmaster general emphasizing concerns with service to 13 post offices in Colorado mountain towns following an Office of the Inspector General audit, a call they reiterated in a second letter in June.

Citing issues including understaffing, incorrect delivery of packages, slow delivery speeds, and lack of sufficient mail sorting equipment at facilities, “it is unacceptable to not see improvements on these long-standing issues,” the letter said.

The parking lot renovations will not have an impact on the post office’s operations, but the driving experience will be slightly improved, at least. Barron takes the Postal Service’s newfound attention on the lots as a sign that community advocacy worked.

“As a community, keep your voices heard,” he said. “Even though it takes time for change, especially for something as simple as a post office parking lot, we’re a powerful community with a lot of good minds around us.”

The Vail Daily reached out to the United States Postal Service for comment but did not hear back.

What will the repairs look like?

For Barron, working with the Postal Service has “been a joy. It was surprising to see how responsive they’ve been to us. They reached out to us, which was nice, that they recognized a local contractor.”

“They pushed pretty hard for these repairs to be done,” Barron said.

Sun-Up Sealcoats is implementing a form of repairing potholes and damaged asphalt called infrared packing in the lots, essentially a high-quality spot treatment rather than full-scale repaving.

“On this project, in particular, there’s still a lot of salvageable asphalt there. There is more that can be done, in terms of cracked sealing, sealcoating and line striping to really freshen up the post office, but the priority of the postal service was definitely taking care of the potholes, taking care of the damage that was existing there,” Barron said.

The repairs are expected to last the life of the pavement, around 20 to 25 years, Barron said. “We’re able to achieve one singular surface,” Barron said. “Up here in the mountains, especially with the harsher conditions, it proves to be an optimal repair method.”

With the parking lots looking a little sharper, the question of whether the postal service will next turn its restorative focus on making repairs to its service in mountain towns remains unanswered.