US Postal Service Considers Closing Downtown Post Office

Plymouth's Central Post Office is under review for possible closure, according to a press release from the U.S. Postal Service.

The post offices at 6 Main Street Extension one of 43 in Massachusetts the postal service plans to study to determine the "customer needs," the statement, released Tuesday, said.

Plymouth has seven post office locations: 6 Main St. Ext. in Downtown Plymouth, 283 Court St. in North Plymouth, 100 Long Pond Road in West Plymouth, 119 White Horse Road in White Horse Beach, 12 Manomet Point Road in Manomet, and 33 Summer House Drive in the Pinehills and a small branch location at 105 Winslowe's View in the Pinehills.

The post office at 6 Main St. Ext. was once a major hub for the postal service. The building known as Post Office Square now contains offices and small businesses along with the post office. Plymouth's main hub is now located on Long Pond Road.

The U.S. Postal Service currently operates 32,000 offices around the country, and the need to keep them all open has diminished as more people use places like pharmacies, grocery stores and the Internet to make postal purchases.

“Our customer’s habits have made it clear that they no longer require a physical post office to conduct most of their postal business,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in a written statement.

A total of 3,700 post offices around the country will be studied, the release said. The postal service also announced it will offer a new "Village Post Office" program, which would be operated by local businesses, such as pharmacies, grocery stores and other appropriate retailers, and would offer popular postal products and services such as stamps and flat-rate packaging, the press release stated.