Despite talks of closure, the application to nominate the Charleston Post Office for the 2010 list of the 10 Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois went out Wednesday.

The U.S. Postal Service announced in late December that the discussions to sell the Charleston Post Office, located on 320 Sixth St., ended.

The Charleston Historic Preservation Committee has decided to continue the application process because of a lack of communication between the Postal Service spokesperson and the local post office, committee chairwoman Elisa Roberts said.

“The corporate spokesperson for the Postal Service failed to inform the local post master the sale negotiations had ended,” Roberts said. “We are continuing with the nomination in case the Postal Service decides to resume negotiations to sell it, we want to be ready.”

The committee is trying to make sure the building remains intact whether a sale occurs or not, Roberts said.

“We don’t want the United States Postal Service to sell the building to someone who they know intends to demolish it,” Roberts said.

Eiliesh Tuffy, commissioner of organization, said the 10 Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois is an annual list of potential locations compiled from feedback from grass roots preservation organizations across the state.

“We try to act as the liaison between organizations and resolving preservation challenges,” Tuffy said.

Once the organization has received the nominations, the Illinois Landmark committee consults with those who submitted the site for consideration as well as local officials and people within the planning offices of those municipalities and organizations to get a full understanding of what the threat is to that site, Tuffy said.

“Based on the 30 to 40 nominations that we receive every year, we assess them at a staff level and try to determine which sites would benefit the most from assistance from our organization,” Tuffy said. “Typically we try to work with these groups prior to putting them on the top 10 most endangered list, we try to keep this as a last effort to try to draw attention to these resources.”

The organization tries to promote productive reuse of the historic structures, which is usually feasible because most of these structures were built very well, Tuffy said.

In order to make this a possibility, the staff and the board is comprised of different architects, preservationists, engineers and other people with experience in these fields.

The final list is typically decided in early March and officially announced at a press conference in late April or early May in Springfield.

Roberts is confident the Charleston Post Office has a fighting chance.

“We have a chance because this Illinois Landmark competition does not include Chicago,” Roberts said. “Chicago has its own competition.”

The Historic Preservation Committee hopes to gain some notoriety, in case there is a developer out there who is looking to take a building and possibly convert it into offices, a museum or a restaurant, Roberts said.

Kayleigh Zyskowski can be reached at 581-7942 or at kzyskowski@eiu.edu

Arbie Lewis counts out books of stamps to give a to customer at the Charleston Post Office. Lewis has worked for the postal service for 32 years. (Audrey Sawyer / The Daily Eastern News)

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