Carla OccasoThe federal building at 87 State Street in Montpelier does not look like most of the buildings in Montpelier. A sleek three-story structure built in 1963, it has Verde antique marble from Rochester, Vermont, on the first floor exterior, along with Vermont white marble above it on the second story. The federal building housed Montpelier’s busy post office until July 2023, when floodwaters rose 42 inches into the first floor and damaged the building.
The design of this building is distinct, and protected in deed covenants, according to Montpelier’s Planning Director Mike Miller, when talking about this now-abandoned structure’s disposition. “Its architectural features distinctly showcase the monolithic and monumental modes of Modern Movement design, which gained popularity in 1964,” per an article at trivers.com. The post office originally operated on the first floor and the federal court operated on the second floor. The post office operated continuously until the flood of July 2023 damaged the first floor, while court functions relocated in 1992.
The building is closed and for sale by the federal government, with the offices and functions once held within moved to other locations. The United States Post Office, for example, is now temporarily located at City Center, 89 Main Street, and does its sorting out of the Central Vermont Marketplace in Berlin. Nearly two years after the 2023 flood, Vermont’s capital city is still without a permanent home for its post office.
Before today’s marble post office federal building was built, the post office building was what the U.S. General Services Administration called a “magnificent granite Romanesque structure with arched entrances, turrets, and an impressive courtroom on the second floor.” It was considered the finest public building in Vermont by the Vermont Watchman in 1893, but it was demolished in 1963 to make way for the more modern structure at 87 State Street.
See more about the federal building on page 16 in this issue.
