Dormitory classification leaves residents of new apartment building without mail delivery
None of the more than 100 residents in the Bellaire apartment building in State College have seen a single piece of mail delivered since move-in day in August.
Though residents at 711 Bellaire Ave. were given mailboxes with keys and told mail would be delivered, the U.S. Postal Service in State College won’t deliver directly to the building since it is classified as a “dormitory,” according to Tad Kelley, spokesperson for postal service’s western Pennsylvania district.
Dave Jones, project manager for development company Herlocher Paterno LLC, which built the Bellaire apartment building, said USPS approved the building’s mailboxes for USPS delivery in May.
But when the building opened in August, “(USPS) said no, we don’t deliver because you’re a dormitory,” he said.
Kristen Holzwarth, property manager at Associated Realty Property Management, said two properties managed by ARPM — Cliffside Apartments in 2014 and The Edge last year — had the same issue with USPS, but were able to resolve it in about three to four months.
“We have another new building coming on next fall and we don’t want to have the same issue,” she said. “People deserve to get their mail, even the students.”
According to a 2012 update to the USPS Postal Operations Manual, a dormitory or residence hall must have single or multi-room units that “may share or have access to centrally located kitchens, bathrooms, showers or social or common areas.”
Dormitories may be located either on or off campus and be privately owned, said the manual, and “either the school or building owner is responsible for the final delivery of student mail. Post Office personnel do not distribute mail into apartment-type mailboxes for dormitories or residence halls.”
Jones said The Apartment Store, which owns and operates the Bellaire and several other rental properties in college town markets, doesn’t have enough space in its main office for a mail room, and doesn’t have the personnel to sort through residents’ personal mail.
Even after Jones sent documentation to USPS that the Bellaire is a private apartment building that houses students and non-students and doesn’t include common areas, both State College USPS and the Western District USPS — which covers western Pennsylvania from Erie to Pittsburgh and as far east as State College — said the building did not comply.
According to documents provided to the CDT, USPS Western District Manager Troy Seanor told The Apartment Store and Jones that the Bellaire is student housing because various publications and online identify it as such, leasing information addresses undergraduate and graduate students and undergraduate student leases require a parental signature.
“The delivery to this facility is in line with our regulations which require single-point delivery to hotels, institutions, schools and similar places, including student housing facilities,” said Kelley in an email.
Kelley said USPS isn’t “refusing” to deliver mail and have “attempted delivery” to the management at the Bellaire to distribute to residents.
State College Postmaster Cate Knisely declined to comment on the matter.
Congressman Fred Keller, R-Kreamer, reached out to USPS on behalf of the Bellaire’s owner, David Paterno, but got a similar answer. In an Oct. 17 letter provided to the CDT, he told Paterno he “deeply” regretted that USPS could not resolve the dormitory classification issue in his favor.
Bellaire resident Elise Smalley, who is not a student and was placed in the building through the affordable housing program, said the lack of mail delivery has put an undue burden on her.
The Bellaire is located about a mile from the post office at 237 S. Fraser St., she said, and she’s there almost every day checking on or picking up mail and various supplies she orders for her two emotional support cats. Since Smalley doesn’t have a car, she often has to rely on other people to drive her to the post office to help her get heavy supplies — like the 31-pound bag of cat litter she orders over Amazon once a month — back to her apartment.
“It’s really taken away a lot of my independence,” she said. She often has to plan her whole day around the post office trips and work within other people’s schedules.
Though Smalley said she knows the building rents mostly to students, neither she nor her roommate is a student, and she has observed zero common spaces in her building that would qualify it as a dormitory.
“To be told that it’s a student housing issue has been very, very frustrating because we don’t fall under that at all,” she said.
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