Downtown Federal Building Security Tightened

Tuesday, July 27th 1999, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Federal marshals are tightening security at one downtown Tulsa federal building. The added security is affecting a lot of people including postal customers who use the main station inside the building located at 3rd and Denver. Traffic is also backed up while construction crews are making improvements. The New on Six is investigating the project in response to a viewer who got in touch with us.

The Postal Service is delivering on a promise to address security concerns at what one study called "one the country's most unsecured federal buildings." The growing pains are affecting workers and customers. The main problem is too much access to various parts of the building. All of the loading docks are vulnerable to any kind of a threat. The post office would not talk about specifics because it's a security matter.

Many of the changes are obvious. New barricades are in place in front of the main entrance. Parking meters around the perimeter of the building are gone. And the entrances to the building are being remodeled with secured access. "What we're going through right now is just a portion of it. Unfortunately, it has an impact on our customers, which we truly regret. Long term, this will benefit everyone," said Rick Shirley, U.S. Postal Service.

In the interim, Tulsa's main post office has only 13 parking spaces for customers. And some of them don't think the security changes will make a difference. The biggest part of the construction should be finished by July 30th. Until then, consider using alternate locations or coming outside of the peak times, especially during the rush hour.

It will soon get less crowded at the downtown post office, too. The bulk mail operations will move to a new east Tulsa facility this fall.