GREENBANK — It was a special delivery the Greenbank Post Office never expected.
In late May, an 84-year-old driver smashed his van into the post office’s outer structural wall, buckling and damaging it to the point that the concrete wall had to be completely removed.
Long-awaited repairs to the post office, though, were finally delivered earlier this month.
Three workers from Ken Marsh Construction Inc. have been working for nearly three weeks to fix up the post office. The crew has replaced the concrete wall with a wood-frame one instead, said lead worker Garth Volpp.
“We took down all the concrete walls and wood framed it,” he said.
The workers are halfway done with the project and are working on the cosmetic part of the renovation.
Tom Coupe, the owner of the complex that houses the post office and the Greenbank General Store, is looking forward to the job being done in less than a month, well before the holiday season.
Coupe built his general store in May, 1964 and four years later, built the post office building.
And since Coupe was more or less required to do a renovation, he decided to make the post office look similar to his store front and construct it with wood.
“It will tie in with the store better because of the bats and boards. It will have better insulation, which the cinderblocks did not have,” he said.
The renovation has cost around $70,000, Coupe said, some of it being paid by the driver’s insurance company and the rest by Coupe’s insurance company.
Coupe said he is pleased with the progress as the accident happened only five months before.
“I have total confidence in Ken Marsh Construction and the three workers who have been here since Oct. 1,” he said.
Coupe, whose great-grandfather founded Coupeville in 1852, has enjoyed owning the store with his wife Mary for more than four decades.
“I’ve had this store since May 6, 1964. This next May 6 will be 44 years,” he said.
“I love having longevity in the community. We would not have been here that long if people didn’t like what we were doing.”
