STOCKBRIDGE — A real estate investment trust that owns and manages postal service properties across the United States has purchased a property in the Berkshires.
An affiliate of Postal Realty LLC of Cedarhurst, N.Y., recently bought property at 1 Elm St. that houses the Stockbridge Post Office. It paid $888,850, according to documents filed at the Middle Berkshire Registry of Deeds. The new ownership group is Mass Postal Realty Holdings LLC.
The former owners, OK Mass Realty of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., had purchased the property, which is less than an acre, for $325,000 in September 1999.
Postal Realty LLC has been buying and managing space leased to the U.S. Postal Service since the early 1980s. It is the only publicly traded real estate investment trust in the country to focus on property leased to the postal service, according to its website. The company owned 1,239 postal properties of all shapes and sizes as of October, including 15 in Massachusetts and 76 in New England.
The U.S Postal Service was aware the property was on the market and holds an ongoing lease at that location, according to Postal Service spokesman Steve Doherty.
“We haven’t heard anything from him as far as his intention to not have us in there,” Doherty said, referring to the property’s new owner. “So we’re going along with the status quo at this point until he notifies us otherwise.”
In February 2021, the U.S. Postal Service shut down the post office in the Stockbridge village of Glendale because the landlord did not renew the lease. Mail service for the 86 box holders was transferred to the town’s main post office on Elm Street. Doherty said the postal service is still looking for a site to relocate that office.