The U.S. Postal Service opened a huge new mail-handling center near Dulles International Airport on Monday to relieve the Merrifield postal facility in Fairfax County.
The Dulles center "will take mail-processing pressure off the Merrifield facility . . . and at the same time prepare for the increased mail volume in the western division," said Gene W. Hoge, the Northern Virginia Division postmaster.
The 417,000-square-foot facility will employ about 1,100 workers in three shifts.
There are no plans to hire new workers, according to Robert J. Faruq, a spokesman for the Postal Service. About 700 will come from Merrifield and the rest from other facilities.
Construction on the new facility, which began in June 1990, is 99 percent complete.
Since it first opened in 1972, Merrifield has processed the mail for most of suburban and rural Northern Virginia.
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Now, after two decades of dramatic population growth that is projected to spread into the still largely rural areas south and west of Dulles airport, Merrifield can no longer deal with the volume of mail.
The population of Loudoun County is expected to grow from a projected 103,700 in 1995 to 201,500 in 2015.
Fauquier County, now with just under 49,000 residents, is expected to grow to more than 80,000 by 2010.
The population of Prince William County is expected to grow from 223,000 this year to 307,000 by 2000, according to county development officers.
When the Dulles Independent Mail Processing Center becomes fully operational in October, it will handle 40 percent of the mail that now goes through Merrifield.
Forty percent of the staff at Merrifield will be transferred to the Dulles center during the next eight months.
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The new facility will process mail from Loudoun, Fauquier, Culpeper, Frederick, most of Prince William and part of Fairfax counties.
By October, almost 1 billion pieces of mail a year will pass through the 57-acre center, which includes a 37,000-square-foot vehicle maintenance center.
The center will serve the western portion of the area with Zip codes starting in 220 or 221 and the entire area with Zip codes starting in 226 or 227.
Hoge said the new center would help improve service and efficiency and cut costs in the areas it serves.
By October, the Dulles center will accept bulk mail and sell stamps through vending machines. A window for Express Mail also will open in October.
There will be no other services provided at the site.
The facility is northeast of Dulles airport in the Broad Run Business Center on Prentice Randolph Drive.
All mail addressed to the center should be marked with a new Zip code created for the center, 20101-9998.
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